Systems and methods for generating educational fluid media

ABSTRACT

The present disclosure provides systems and methods for formatting and generating teaching media for different contexts. A system can receive, from a client computing device, media content having one or more media modalities each having presentation attributes. The system can determine initial formatting rules for the media content based on the presentation attributes of the one or more media modalities. The system can identify a destination format for the media content having a formatting requirement for each of the one or more media modalities of the media content. The system can modify the initial formatting rules for the media content based on the formatting requirement for each of the one or more media modalities. The system can generate an information resource having the destination format based on the modified formatting rules for the media content.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application claims the benefit of and priority as acontinuation to U.S. Nonprovisional patent application Ser. No.17/523,839, entitled “Systems and Methods for Generating EducationalFluid Media,” filed Nov. 10, 2021, the entirety of which is incorporatedby reference herein.

BACKGROUND

Educators typically create and format teaching media as part of a lessonplan. It can be challenging to efficiently create and format content inmultiple different formats for various teaching environments andcontexts.

SUMMARY

Conventionally, educators manually create and format multiple teachingmedia that includes the same, or similar, content. Some example contentrepresentations created by teachers or other presenters can include worddocuments, presentations or slides, online tests, quizzes, assessments,and digital flashcards, among others. The systems and methods of thistechnical solution leverage common content conventionally used manuallyby educators, and can automatically generate and format content inteaching media for presentation in a variety of environments.

Educators typically move and format content when creating teaching mediafor different contexts and new presentation environments. The systemsand methods of this technical solution eliminate manual generation ofteaching content for different contexts. By applying logic to granularlystored questions, explanatory content, and other teaching media, thesystems and methods described herein enable the content to beautomatically formatted and converted into multiple media for differentteaching environments. This reduces manual intervention for teachingmaterial creation, which can often be inconsistent, inaccurate, orunreliable, and can remove the tedium of certain activities likere-sizing pictures, weighting fonts, optimizing page breaks orgenerating personalized cover sheets. Thus, the systems and methodsdescribed herein improve the generation of teaching media byautomatically resizing content, such as images, pictures, and video, aswell as selecting formatting parameters for fonts, mathematical formulasand equations, chemical formulas, graphs, and other teaching contentautomatically. Further, the systems and methods described herein cangenerate content for a variety of different contexts automatically.

At least one aspect of the present disclosure is directed to a method ofgenerating and formatting multiple teaching media. The method can beperformed, for example, by one or more processors coupled to memory. Themethod can include receiving, from a client computing device, mediacontent comprising one or more media modalities each having apresentation attribute. The method can include determining initialformatting rules for the media content based on the presentationattribute of each of the one or more media modalities. The method caninclude identifying a destination format for the media content, thedestination format comprising a formatting requirement for each of theone or more media modalities. The method can include modifying theinitial formatting rules for the media content based on the formattingrequirement of the destination format to create modified formattingrules. The method can include generating an information resource havingthe destination format based on the modified formatting rules for themedia content.

In some implementations, identifying the destination format for themedia content can include transmitting a set of potential destinationformats to the client computing device. In some implementations,identifying the destination format for the media content can includereceiving, from the client computing device, a selection of thedestination format from the set of potential destination formats. Insome implementations, determining the initial formatting rules for themedia content further can include identifying a respective portion ofthe media content corresponding to each of the one or more mediamodalities. In some implementations, determining the initial formattingrules for the media content further can include determining the initialformatting rules for the respective portion corresponding to each of theone or more media modalities based on a context specified by the clientcomputing device.

In some implementations, the media content can include one or moreimages. In some implementations, modifying the initial formatting rulesfor the media content can include determining an adjusted size for theone or more images based on the formatting requirement and an originalsize of the one or more images. In some implementations, identifying thedestination format can include determining a device type on which thedestination format will be presented. In some implementations,identifying the destination format can include modifying the initialformatting rules for the media content based on presentationcapabilities of the device type on which the destination format will bepresented.

In some implementations, the media content specifies preliminary layoutinformation of a plurality of portions of the media content. In someimplementations, determining the initial formatting rules is furtherbased on the preliminary layout information. In some implementations,the method can further include identifying second media contentassociated with second formatting rules and a second presentationattribute, the second media content specified for inclusion in theinformation resource. In some implementations, the method can furtherinclude generating composite formatting rules for the informationresource based on the media content and the second presentationattribute and one or more attributes of the information resource. Insome implementations, the method can further include generating theinformation resource to include the media content and the second mediacontent based on the composite formatting rules.

In some implementations, generating the composite formatting rules caninclude providing, as input to a regression model, the presentationattribute of each of the one or more media modalities, the one or moreattributes of the information resource, and the second presentationattribute of the second media content. In some implementations,generating the composite formatting rules can include identifying, as anoutput of the regression model, a first portion of the compositeformatting rules corresponding to the media content, and a secondportion of the composite formatting rules corresponding to the secondmedia content. In some implementations, at least one of the one or moremedia modalities is an image and the presentation attribute of the imageis an image size.

In some implementations, modifying the initial formatting rules for themedia content can include modifying the image size of the image based onthe destination format and other content in the information resource. Insome implementations, modifying the initial formatting rules for themedia content can include determining maximum and minimum values for thepresentation attribute of the one or more media modalities. In someimplementations, modifying the initial formatting rules for the mediacontent can include selecting an updated value of the presentationattribute of the one or more media modalities based on the formattingrequirement.

At least one other aspect of the present disclosure is directed to asystem for generating and formatting multiple teaching media. The systemcan include one or more processors coupled to memory. The system canreceive, from a client computing device, media content comprising one ormore media modalities each having a presentation attribute. The systemcan determine initial formatting rules for the media content based onthe presentation attribute of each of the one or more media modalities.The system can identify a destination format for the media content, thedestination format comprising a formatting requirement for each of theone or more media modalities. The system can modify the initialformatting rules for the media content based on the formattingrequirement of the destination format to create modified formattingrules. The system can generate an information resource having thedestination format based on the modified formatting rules for the mediacontent.

In some implementations, the system can identify the destination formatfor the media content by transmitting a set of potential destinationformats to the client computing device. In some implementations, thesystem can identify the destination format for the media content byreceiving, from the client computing device, a selection of thedestination format from the set of potential destination formats. Insome implementations, the system can determine the initial formattingrules for the media content by identifying a respective portion of themedia content corresponding to each of the one or more media modalities.In some implementations, the system can determine the initial formattingrules for the media content by determining the initial formatting rulesfor the respective portion corresponding to each of the one or moremedia modalities based on a context specified by the client computingdevice.

In some implementations, media content can include one or more images.In some implementations, the system can modify the initial formattingrules for the media content by determining an adjusted size for the oneor more images based on the formatting requirement and an original sizeof the one or more images. In some implementations, the system canidentify the destination format by determining a device type on whichthe destination format will be presented. In some implementations, thesystem can identify the destination format by modifying the initialformatting rules for the media content based on presentationcapabilities of the device type on which the destination format will bepresented. In some implementations, the media content specifiespreliminary layout information of a plurality of portions of the mediacontent. In some implementations, the system can determine the initialformatting rules further based on the preliminary layout information.

In some implementations, the system can identify second media contentassociated with second formatting rules and a second presentationattribute, the second media content specified for inclusion in theinformation resource. In some implementations, the system can generatecomposite formatting rules for the information resource based on themedia content and the second presentation attribute and one or moreattributes of the information resource. In some implementations, thesystem can generate the information resource to include the mediacontent and the second media content based on the composite formattingrules.

In some implementations, the system can generate the compositeformatting rules by providing, as input to a regression model, thepresentation attribute of each of the one or more media modalities, theone or more attributes of the information resource, and the secondpresentation attribute of the second media content. In someimplementations, the system can generate the composite formatting rulesby identifying, as an output of the regression model, a first portion ofthe composite formatting rules corresponding to the media content, and asecond portion of the composite formatting rules corresponding to thesecond media content.

In some implementations, at least one of the one or more mediamodalities is an image and the presentation attribute of the image is animage size. In some implementations, the system can modify the initialformatting rules for the media content by modifying the image size ofthe image based on the destination format and other content in theinformation resource. In some implementations, the system can modify theinitial formatting rules for the media content by determining maximumand minimum values for the presentation attribute of the one or moremedia modalities. In some implementations, the system can modify theinitial formatting rules for the media content by selecting an updatedvalue of the presentation attribute of the one or more media modalitiesbased on the formatting requirement.

These and other aspects and implementations are discussed in detailbelow. The foregoing information and the following detailed descriptioninclude illustrative examples of various aspects and implementations,and provide an overview or framework for understanding the nature andcharacter of the claimed aspects and implementations. The drawingsprovide illustration and a further understanding of the various aspectsand implementations, and are incorporated in and constitute a part ofthis specification. Aspects can be combined and it will be readilyappreciated that features described in the context of one aspect of theinvention can be combined with other aspects. Aspects can be implementedin any convenient form. For example, by appropriate computer programs,which may be carried on appropriate carrier media (computer readablemedia), which may be tangible carrier media (e.g. disks) or intangiblecarrier media (e.g. communications signals). Aspects may also beimplemented using suitable apparatus, which may take the form ofprogrammable computers running computer programs arranged to implementthe aspect. As used in the specification and in the claims, the singularform of ‘a’, ‘an’, and ‘the’ include plural referents unless the contextclearly dictates otherwise.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings are not intended to be drawn to scale. Likereference numbers and designations in the various drawings indicate likeelements. For purposes of clarity, not every component may be labeled inevery drawing. In the drawings:

FIG. 1A is a block diagram depicting an embodiment of a networkenvironment comprising a client device in communication with a serverdevice;

FIG. 1B is a block diagram depicting a cloud computing environmentcomprising a client device in communication with cloud serviceproviders;

FIGS. 1C and 1D are block diagrams depicting embodiments of computingdevices useful in connection with the methods and systems describedherein;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an example system for generating andformatting teaching media in multiple formats for different contexts, inaccordance with one or more implementations;

FIG. 3 illustrates a data flow diagram of formatting rules beinggenerated using a regression model, in accordance with one or moreimplementations; and

FIG. 4 illustrates an example flow diagram of a method for generatingand formatting teaching media in multiple formats for differentcontexts, in accordance with one or more implementations.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Below are detailed descriptions of various concepts related to, andimplementations of, techniques, approaches, methods, apparatuses, andsystems for generating and formatting multiple teaching media. Thevarious concepts introduced above and discussed in greater detail belowmay be implemented in any of numerous ways, as the described conceptsare not limited to any particular manner of implementation. Examples ofspecific implementations and applications are provided primarily forillustrative purposes

For purposes of reading the description of the various implementationsbelow, the following descriptions of the sections of the Specificationand their respective contents may be helpful:

Section A describes a network environment and computing environmentwhich may be useful for practicing embodiments described herein; and

Section B describes systems and methods for generating and formattingteaching media in multiple formats for different contexts.

A. Computing and Network Environment

Prior to discussing specific implements of the various aspects of thistechnical solution, it may be helpful to describe aspects of theoperating environment as well as associated system components (e.g.,hardware elements) in connection with the methods and systems describedherein. Referring to FIG. 1A, an embodiment of a network environment isdepicted. In brief overview, the network environment includes one ormore clients 102 a-102 n (also generally referred to as local machine(s)102, client(s) 102, client node(s) 102, client machine(s) 102, clientcomputer(s) 102, client device(s) 102, endpoint(s) 102, or endpointnode(s) 102) in communication with one or more agents 103 a-103 n andone or more servers 106 a-106 n (also generally referred to as server(s)106, node 106, or remote machine(s) 106) via one or more networks 104.In some embodiments, a client 102 has the capacity to function as both aclient node seeking access to resources provided by a server and as aserver providing access to hosted resources for other clients 102 a-102n.

Although FIG. 1A shows a network 104 between the clients 102 and theservers 106, the clients 102 and the servers 106 may be on the samenetwork 104. In some embodiments, there are multiple networks 104between the clients 102 and the servers 106. In one of theseembodiments, a network 104′ (not shown) may be a private network and anetwork 104 may be a public network. In another of these embodiments, anetwork 104 may be a private network and a network 104′ a publicnetwork. In still another of these embodiments, networks 104 and 104′may both be private networks.

The network 104 may be connected via wired or wireless links. Wiredlinks may include Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), coaxial cable lines, oroptical fiber lines. The wireless links may include BLUETOOTH, Wi-Fi,Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX), an infraredchannel or satellite band. The wireless links may also include anycellular network standards used to communicate among mobile devices,including standards that qualify as 1G, 2G, 3G, or 4G. The networkstandards may qualify as one or more mobile telecommunication standardsby fulfilling a specification or standards such as the specificationsmaintained by International Telecommunication Union. The 3G standards,for example, may correspond to the International MobileTelecommunications-2000 (IMT-2000) specification, and the 4G standardsmay correspond to the International Mobile Telecommunications Advanced(IMT-Advanced) specification. Examples of cellular network standardsinclude AMPS, GSM, GPRS, UMTS, LTE, LTE Advanced, Mobile WiMAX, andWiMAX-Advanced. Cellular network standards may use various channelaccess methods e.g. FDMA, TDMA, CDMA, or SDMA. In some embodiments,different types of data may be transmitted via different links andstandards. In other embodiments, the same types of data may betransmitted via different links and standards.

The network 104 may be any type and/or form of network. The geographicalscope of the network 104 may vary widely and the network 104 can be abody area network (BAN), a personal area network (PAN), a local-areanetwork (LAN), e.g. Intranet, a metropolitan area network (MAN), a widearea network (WAN), or the Internet. The topology of the network 104 maybe of any form and may include, e.g., any of the following:point-to-point, bus, star, ring, mesh, or tree. The network 104 may bean overlay network which is virtual and sits on top of one or morelayers of other networks 104′. The network 104 may be of any suchnetwork topology as known to those ordinarily skilled in the art capableof supporting the operations described herein. The network 104 mayutilize different techniques and layers or stacks of protocols,including, e.g., the Ethernet protocol, the internet protocol suite(TCP/IP), the ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) technique, the SONET(Synchronous Optical Networking) protocol, or the SDH (SynchronousDigital Hierarchy) protocol. The TCP/IP internet protocol suite mayinclude application layer, transport layer, internet layer (including,e.g., IPv6), or the link layer. The network 104 may be a type of abroadcast network, a telecommunications network, a data communicationnetwork, or a computer network.

In some embodiments, the system may include multiple, logically-groupedservers 106. In one of these embodiments, the logical group of serversmay be referred to as a server farm 38 (not shown) or a machine farm 38.In another of these embodiments, the servers 106 may be geographicallydispersed. In other embodiments, a machine farm 38 may be administeredas a single entity. In still other embodiments, the machine farm 38includes a plurality of machine farms 38. The servers 106 within eachmachine farm 38 can be heterogeneous—one or more of the servers 106 ormachines 106 can operate according to one type of operating systemplatform (e.g., WINDOWS NT, manufactured by Microsoft Corp. of Redmond,Washington), while one or more of the other servers 106 can operate onaccording to another type of operating system platform (e.g., Unix,Linux, or Mac OS X).

In one embodiment, servers 106 in the machine farm 38 may be stored inhigh-density rack systems, along with associated storage systems, andlocated in an enterprise data center. In this embodiment, consolidatingthe servers 106 in this way may improve system manageability, datasecurity, the physical security of the system, and system performance bylocating servers 106 and high performance storage systems on localizedhigh performance networks. Centralizing the servers 106 and storagesystems and coupling them with advanced system management tools allowsmore efficient use of server resources.

The servers 106 of each machine farm 38 do not need to be physicallyproximate to another server 106 in the same machine farm 38. Thus, thegroup of servers 106 logically grouped as a machine farm 38 may beinterconnected using a wide-area network (WAN) connection or ametropolitan-area network (MAN) connection. For example, a machine farm38 may include servers 106 physically located in different continents ordifferent regions of a continent, country, state, city, campus, or room.Data transmission speeds between servers 106 in the machine farm 38 canbe increased if the servers 106 are connected using a local-area network(LAN) connection or some form of direct connection. Additionally, aheterogeneous machine farm 38 may include one or more servers 106operating according to a type of operating system, while one or moreother servers 106 execute one or more types of hypervisors rather thanoperating systems. In these embodiments, hypervisors may be used toemulate virtual hardware, partition physical hardware, virtualizephysical hardware, and execute virtual machines that provide access tocomputing environments, allowing multiple operating systems to runconcurrently on a host computer. Native hypervisors may run directly onthe host computer. Hypervisors may include VMware ESX/ESXi, manufacturedby VMWare, Inc., of Palo Alto, California; the Xen hypervisor, an opensource product whose development is overseen by Citrix Systems, Inc.;the HYPER-V hypervisors provided by Microsoft or others. Hostedhypervisors may run within an operating system on a second softwarelevel. Examples of hosted hypervisors may include VMware Workstation andVIRTUALBOX.

Management of the machine farm 38 may be de-centralized. For example,one or more servers 106 may comprise components, subsystems and modulesto support one or more management services for the machine farm 38. Inone of these embodiments, one or more servers 106 provide functionalityfor management of dynamic data, including techniques for handlingfailover, data replication, and increasing the robustness of the machinefarm 38. Each server 106 may communicate with a persistent store and, insome embodiments, with a dynamic store.

Server 106 may be a file server, application server, web server, proxyserver, appliance, network appliance, gateway, gateway server,virtualization server, deployment server, SSL VPN server, or firewall.In one embodiment, the server 106 may be referred to as a remote machineor a node. In another embodiment, a plurality of nodes 290 may be in thepath between any two communicating servers.

Referring to FIG. 1B, a cloud computing environment is depicted. A cloudcomputing environment may provide client 102 with one or more resourcesprovided by a network environment. The cloud computing environment mayinclude one or more clients 102 a-102 n, in communication withrespective agents 103 a-103 n and with the cloud 108 over one or morenetworks 104. Clients 102 may include, e.g., thick clients, thinclients, and zero clients. A thick client may provide at least somefunctionality even when disconnected from the cloud 108 or servers 106.A thin client or a zero client may depend on the connection to the cloud108 or server 106 to provide functionality. A zero client may depend onthe cloud 108 or other networks 104 or servers 106 to retrieve operatingsystem data for the client device. The cloud 108 may include back endplatforms, e.g., servers 106, storage, server farms or data centers.

The cloud 108 may be public, private, or hybrid. Public clouds mayinclude public servers 106 that are maintained by third parties to theclients 102 or the owners of the clients. The servers 106 may be locatedoff-site in remote geographical locations as disclosed above orotherwise. Public clouds may be connected to the servers 106 over apublic network. Private clouds may include private servers 106 that arephysically maintained by clients 102 or owners of clients. Privateclouds may be connected to the servers 106 over a private network 104.Hybrid clouds 108 may include both the private and public networks 104and servers 106.

The cloud 108 may also include a cloud based delivery, e.g. Software asa Service (SaaS) 110, Platform as a Service (PaaS) 112, andInfrastructure as a Service (IaaS) 114. IaaS may refer to a user rentingthe use of infrastructure resources that are needed during a specifiedtime period. IaaS providers may offer storage, networking, servers orvirtualization resources from large pools, allowing the users to quicklyscale up by accessing more resources as needed. Examples of IaaS includeAMAZON WEB SERVICES provided by Amazon.com, Inc., of Seattle,Washington, RACKSPACE CLOUD provided by Rackspace US, Inc., of SanAntonio, Texas, Google Compute Engine provided by Google Inc. ofMountain View, California, or RIGHTSCALE provided by RightScale, Inc.,of Santa Barbara, California. PaaS providers may offer functionalityprovided by IaaS, including, e.g., storage, networking, servers orvirtualization, as well as additional resources such as, e.g., theoperating system, middleware, or runtime resources. Examples of PaaSinclude WINDOWS AZURE provided by Microsoft Corporation of Redmond,Washington, Google App Engine provided by Google Inc., and HEROKUprovided by Heroku, Inc. of San Francisco, California. SaaS providersmay offer the resources that PaaS provides, including storage,networking, servers, virtualization, operating system, middleware, orruntime resources. In some embodiments, SaaS providers may offeradditional resources including, e.g., data and application resources.Examples of SaaS include GOOGLE APPS provided by Google Inc., SALESFORCEprovided by Salesforce.com Inc. of San Francisco, California, or OFFICE365 provided by Microsoft Corporation. Examples of SaaS may also includedata storage providers, e.g. DROPBOX provided by Dropbox, Inc. of SanFrancisco, California, Microsoft SKYDRIVE provided by MicrosoftCorporation, Google Drive provided by Google Inc., or Apple ICLOUDprovided by Apple Inc. of Cupertino, California.

Clients 102 may access IaaS resources with one or more IaaS standards,including, e.g., Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Open CloudComputing Interface (OCCI), Cloud Infrastructure Management Interface(CIMI), or OpenStack standards. Some IaaS standards may allow clientsaccess to resources over HTTP, and may use Representational StateTransfer (REST) protocol or Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP).Clients 102 may access PaaS resources with different PaaS interfaces.Some PaaS interfaces use HTTP packages, standard Java APIs, JavaMailAPI, Java Data Objects (JDO), Java Persistence API (JPA), Python APIs,web integration APIs for different programming languages including,e.g., Rack for Ruby, WSGI for Python, or PSGI for Perl, or other APIsthat may be built on REST, HTTP, XML, or other protocols. Clients 102may access SaaS resources through the use of web-based user interfaces,provided by a web browser (e.g. GOOGLE CHROME, Microsoft INTERNETEXPLORER, or Mozilla Firefox provided by Mozilla Foundation of MountainView, California). Clients 102 may also access SaaS resources throughsmartphone or tablet applications, including, e.g., Salesforce SalesCloud, or Google Drive app. Clients 102 may also access SaaS resourcesthrough the client operating system, including, e.g., Windows filesystem for DROPBOX.

In some embodiments, access to IaaS, PaaS, or SaaS resources may beauthenticated. For example, a server or authentication server mayauthenticate a user via security certificates, HTTPS, or API keys. APIkeys may include various encryption standards such as, e.g., AdvancedEncryption Standard (AES). Data resources may be sent over TransportLayer Security (TLS) or Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).

The client 102 and server 106 may be deployed as and/or executed on anytype and form of computing device, e.g. a computer, network device orappliance capable of communicating on any type and form of network andperforming the operations described herein. FIGS. 1C and 1D depict blockdiagrams of a computing device 100 useful for practicing an embodimentof the client 102 or a server 106. As shown in FIGS. 1C and 1D, eachcomputing device 100 includes a central processing unit 121, and a mainmemory unit 122. As shown in FIG. 1C, a computing device 100 may includea storage device 128, an installation device 116, a network interface118, an I/O controller 123, display devices 124 a-124 n, a keyboard 126and a pointing device 127, e.g. a mouse. The storage device 128 mayinclude, without limitation, an operating system, software, and learningplatform 120, which can implement any of the features of the educationalcontent system 205 described herein below in conjunction with FIG. 2 .As shown in FIG. 1D, each computing device 100 may also includeadditional optional elements, e.g. a memory port 132, a bridge 170, oneor more input/output devices 130 a-130 n (generally referred to usingreference numeral 130), and a cache memory 140 in communication with thecentral processing unit 121.

The central processing unit 121 is any logic circuitry that responds toand processes instructions fetched from the main memory unit 122. Inmany embodiments, the central processing unit 121 is provided by amicroprocessor unit, e.g.: those manufactured by Intel Corporation ofMountain View, California; those manufactured by Motorola Corporation ofSchaumburg, Illinois; the ARM processor and TEGRA system on a chip (SoC)manufactured by Nvidia of Santa Clara, California; the POWER7 processor,those manufactured by International Business Machines of White Plains,New York; or those manufactured by Advanced Micro Devices of Sunnyvale,California. The computing device 100 may be based on any of theseprocessors, or any other processor capable of operating as describedherein. The central processing unit 121 may utilize instruction levelparallelism, thread level parallelism, different levels of cache, andmulti-core processors. A multi-core processor may include two or moreprocessing units on a single computing component. Examples of multi-coreprocessors include the AMD PHENOM IIX2, INTEL CORE i5, INTEL CORE i7,and INTEL CORE i9.

Main memory unit 122 may include one or more memory chips capable ofstoring data and allowing any storage location to be directly accessedby the microprocessor 121. Main memory unit 122 may be volatile andfaster than storage 128 memory. Main memory units 122 may be Dynamicrandom access memory (DRAM) or any variants, including static randomaccess memory (SRAM), Burst SRAM or SynchBurst SRAM (BSRAM), Fast PageMode DRAM (FPM DRAM), Enhanced DRAM (EDRAM), Extended Data Output RAM(EDO RAM), Extended Data Output DRAM (EDO DRAM), Burst Extended DataOutput DRAM (BEDO DRAM), Single Data Rate Synchronous DRAM (SDR SDRAM),Double Data Rate SDRAM (DDR SDRAM), Direct Rambus DRAM (DRDRAM), orExtreme Data Rate DRAM (XDR DRAM). In some embodiments, the main memory122 or the storage 128 may be non-volatile; e.g., non-volatile readaccess memory (NVRAM), flash memory non-volatile static RAM (nvSRAM),Ferroelectric RAM (FeRAM), Magnetoresistive RAM (MRAM), Phase-changememory (PRAM), conductive-bridging RAM (CBRAM),Silicon-Oxide-Nitride-Oxide-Silicon (SONOS), Resistive RAM (RRAM),Racetrack, Nano-RANI (NRAM), or Millipede memory. The main memory 122may be based on any of the above described memory chips, or any otheravailable memory chips capable of operating as described herein. In theembodiment shown in FIG. 1C, the processor 121 communicates with mainmemory 122 via a system bus 150 (described in more detail below). FIG.1D depicts an embodiment of a computing device 100 in which theprocessor communicates directly with main memory 122 via a memory port132. For example, in FIG. 1D the main memory 122 may be DRDRAM.

FIG. 1D depicts an embodiment in which the main processor 121communicates directly with cache memory 140 via a secondary bus,sometimes referred to as a backside bus. In other embodiments, the mainprocessor 121 communicates with cache memory 140 using the system bus150. Cache memory 140 typically has a faster response time than mainmemory 122 and is typically provided by SRAM, BSRAM, or EDRAM. In theembodiment shown in FIG. 1D, the processor 121 communicates with variousI/O devices 130 via a local system bus 150. Various buses may be used toconnect the central processing unit 121 to any of the I/O devices 130,including a PCI bus, a PCI-X bus, or a PCI-Express bus, or a NuBus. Forembodiments in which the I/O device is a video display 124, theprocessor 121 may use an Advanced Graphics Port (AGP) to communicatewith the display 124 or the I/O controller 123 for the display 124. FIG.1D depicts an embodiment of a computer 100 in which the main processor121 communicates directly with I/O device 130 b or other processors 121′via HYPERTRANSPORT, RAPIDIO, or INFINIBAND communications technology.FIG. 1D also depicts an embodiment in which local busses and directcommunication are mixed: the processor 121 communicates with I/O device130 a using a local interconnect bus while communicating with I/O device130 b directly.

A wide variety of I/O devices 130 a-130 n may be present in thecomputing device 100. Input devices may include keyboards, mice,trackpads, trackballs, touchpads, touch mice, multi-touch touchpads andtouch mice, microphones, multi-array microphones, drawing tablets,cameras, single-lens reflex camera (SLR), digital SLR (DSLR), CMOSsensors, accelerometers, infrared optical sensors, pressure sensors,magnetometer sensors, angular rate sensors, depth sensors, proximitysensors, ambient light sensors, gyroscopic sensors, or other sensors.Output devices may include video displays, graphical displays, speakers,headphones, inkjet printers, laser printers, and 3D printers.

Devices 130 a-130 n may include a combination of multiple input oroutput devices, including, e.g., Microsoft KINECT, Nintendo Wiimote forthe WII, Nintendo WII U GAMEPAD, or Apple IPHONE. Some devices 130 a-130n allow gesture recognition inputs through combining some of the inputsand outputs. Some devices 130 a-130 n provide for facial recognitionwhich may be utilized as an input for different purposes includingauthentication and other commands. Some devices 130 a-130 n provides forvoice recognition and inputs, including, e.g., Microsoft KINECT, SIRIfor IPHONE by Apple, Google Now or Google Voice Search.

Additional devices 130 a-130 n have both input and output capabilities,including, e.g., haptic feedback devices, touchscreen displays, ormulti-touch displays. Touchscreen, multi-touch displays, touchpads,touch mice, or other touch sensing devices may use differenttechnologies to sense touch, including, e.g., capacitive, surfacecapacitive, projected capacitive touch (PCT), in-cell capacitive,resistive, infrared, waveguide, dispersive signal touch (DST), in-celloptical, surface acoustic wave (SAW), bending wave touch (BWT), orforce-based sensing technologies. Some multi-touch devices may allow twoor more contact points with the surface, allowing advanced functionalityincluding, e.g., pinch, spread, rotate, scroll, or other gestures. Sometouchscreen devices, including, e.g., Microsoft PIXELSENSE orMulti-Touch Collaboration Wall, may have larger surfaces, such as on atable-top or on a wall, and may also interact with other electronicdevices. Some I/O devices 130 a-130 n, display devices 124 a-124 n orgroup of devices may be augment reality devices. The I/O devices may becontrolled by an I/O controller 123 as shown in FIG. 1C. The I/Ocontroller may control one or more I/O devices, such as, e.g., akeyboard 126 and a pointing device 127, e.g., a mouse or optical pen.Furthermore, an I/O device may also provide storage and/or aninstallation medium 116 for the computing device 100. In still otherembodiments, the computing device 100 may provide USB connections (notshown) to receive handheld USB storage devices. In further embodiments,an I/O device 130 may be a bridge between the system bus 150 and anexternal communication bus, e.g. a USB bus, a SCSI bus, a FireWire bus,an Ethernet bus, a Gigabit Ethernet bus, a Fibre Channel bus, or aThunderbolt bus.

In some embodiments, display devices 124 a-124 n may be connected to I/Ocontroller 123. Display devices may include, e.g., liquid crystaldisplays (LCD), thin film transistor LCD (TFT-LCD), blue phase LCD,electronic papers (e-ink) displays, flexile displays, light emittingdiode displays (LED), digital light processing (DLP) displays, liquidcrystal on silicon (LCOS) displays, organic light-emitting diode (OLED)displays, active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) displays,liquid crystal laser displays, time-multiplexed optical shutter (TMOS)displays, or 3D displays. Examples of 3D displays may use, e.g.stereoscopy, polarization filters, active shutters, or autostereoscopic.Display devices 124 a-124 n may also be a head-mounted display (HMD). Insome embodiments, display devices 124 a-124 n or the corresponding I/Ocontrollers 123 may be controlled through or have hardware support forOPENGL or DIRECTX API or other graphics libraries.

In some embodiments, the computing device 100 may include or connect tomultiple display devices 124 a-124 n, which each may be of the same ordifferent type and/or form. As such, any of the I/O devices 130 a-130 nand/or the I/O controller 123 may include any type and/or form ofsuitable hardware, software, or combination of hardware and software tosupport, enable or provide for the connection and use of multipledisplay devices 124 a-124 n by the computing device 100. For example,the computing device 100 may include any type and/or form of videoadapter, video card, driver, and/or library to interface, communicate,connect or otherwise use the display devices 124 a-124 n. In oneembodiment, a video adapter may include multiple connectors to interfaceto multiple display devices 124 a-124 n. In other embodiments, thecomputing device 100 may include multiple video adapters, with eachvideo adapter connected to one or more of the display devices 124 a-124n. In some embodiments, any portion of the operating system of thecomputing device 100 may be configured for using multiple displays 124a-124 n. In other embodiments, one or more of the display devices 124a-124 n may be provided by one or more other computing devices 100 a or100 b connected to the computing device 100, via the network 104. Insome embodiments software may be designed and constructed to use anothercomputer's display device as a second display device 124 a for thecomputing device 100. For example, in one embodiment, an Apple iPad mayconnect to a computing device 100 and use the display of the device 100as an additional display screen that may be used as an extended desktop.One ordinarily skilled in the art will recognize and appreciate thevarious ways and embodiments that a computing device 100 may beconfigured to have multiple display devices 124 a-124 n.

Referring again to FIG. 1C, the computing device 100 may comprise astorage device 128 (e.g. one or more hard disk drives or redundantarrays of independent disks) for storing an operating system or otherrelated software, and for storing application software programs such asany program related to the learning platform 120. Examples of storagedevice 128 include, e.g., hard disk drive (HDD); optical drive includingCD drive, DVD drive, or BLU-RAY drive; solid-state drive (SSD); USBflash drive; or any other device suitable for storing data. Some storagedevices may include multiple volatile and non-volatile memories,including, e.g., solid state hybrid drives that combine hard disks withsolid state cache. Some storage devices 128 may be non-volatile,mutable, or read-only. Some storage device 128 may be internal andconnect to the computing device 100 via a bus 150. Some storage device128 may be external and connect to the computing device 100 via a I/Odevice 130 that provides an external bus. Some storage device 128 mayconnect to the computing device 100 via the network interface 118 over anetwork 104, including, e.g., the Remote Disk for MACBOOK AIR by Apple.Some client devices 100 may not require a non-volatile storage device128 and may be thin clients or zero clients 102. Some storage device 128may also be used as an installation device 116, and may be suitable forinstalling software and programs. Additionally, the operating system andthe software can be run from a bootable medium, for example, a bootableCD, e.g. KNOPPIX, a bootable CD for GNU/Linux that is available as aGNU/Linux distribution from knoppix.net.

Client device 100 may also install software or applications from anapplication distribution platform. Examples of application distributionplatforms include the App Store for iOS provided by Apple, Inc., the MacApp Store provided by Apple, Inc., GOOGLE PLAY for Android OS providedby Google Inc., Chrome Webstore for CHROME OS provided by Google Inc.,and Amazon Appstore for Android OS and KINDLE FIRE provided byAmazon.com, Inc. An application distribution platform may facilitateinstallation of software on a client device 102. An applicationdistribution platform may include a repository of applications on aserver 106 or a cloud 108, which the clients 102 a-102 n may access overa network 104. An application distribution platform may includeapplications developed and provided by various developers. A user of aclient device 102 may select, purchase and/or download an applicationvia the application distribution platform.

Furthermore, the computing device 100 may include a network interface118 to interface to the network 104 through a variety of connectionsincluding, but not limited to, standard telephone lines LAN or WAN links(e.g., 802.11, T1, T3, Gigabit Ethernet, Infiniband), broadbandconnections (e.g., ISDN, Frame Relay, ATM, Gigabit Ethernet,Ethernet-over-SONET, ADSL, VDSL, BPON, GPON, fiber optical includingFiOS), wireless connections, or some combination of any or all of theabove. Connections can be established using a variety of communicationprotocols (e.g., TCP/IP, Ethernet, ARCNET, SONET, SDH, Fiber DistributedData Interface (FDDI), IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac CDMA, GSM, WiMax and directasynchronous connections). In one embodiment, the computing device 100communicates with other computing devices 100′ via any type and/or formof gateway or tunneling protocol e.g. Secure Socket Layer (SSL) orTransport Layer Security (TLS), or the Citrix Gateway Protocolmanufactured by Citrix Systems, Inc. of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Thenetwork interface 118 may comprise a built-in network adapter, networkinterface card, PCMCIA network card, EXPRESSCARD network card, card busnetwork adapter, wireless network adapter, USB network adapter, modem orany other device suitable for interfacing the computing device 100 toany type of network capable of communication and performing theoperations described herein.

A computing device 100 of the sort depicted in FIGS. 1B and 1C mayoperate under the control of an operating system, which controlsscheduling of tasks and access to system resources. The computing device100 can be running any operating system such as any of the versions ofthe MICROSOFT WINDOWS operating systems, the different releases of theUnix and Linux operating systems, any version of the MAC OS forMacintosh computers, any embedded operating system, any real-timeoperating system, any open source operating system, any proprietaryoperating system, any operating systems for mobile computing devices, orany other operating system capable of running on the computing deviceand performing the operations described herein. Typical operatingsystems include, but are not limited to: WINDOWS 2000, WINDOWS Server2012, WINDOWS CE, WINDOWS Phone, WINDOWS XP, WINDOWS VISTA, and WINDOWS7, WINDOWS RT, and WINDOWS 8 all of which are manufactured by MicrosoftCorporation of Redmond, Washington; MAC OS and iOS, manufactured byApple, Inc. of Cupertino, California; and Linux, a freely-availableoperating system, e.g. Linux Mint distribution (“distro”) or Ubuntu,distributed by Canonical Ltd. of London, United Kingdom; or Unix orother Unix-like derivative operating systems; and Android, designed byGoogle, of Mountain View, California, among others. Some operatingsystems, including, e.g., the CHROME OS by Google, may be used on zeroclients or thin clients, including, e.g., CHROMEBOOKS.

The computer system 100 can be any workstation, telephone, desktopcomputer, laptop or notebook computer, netbook, ULTRABOOK, tablet,server, handheld computer, mobile telephone, smartphone or otherportable telecommunications device, media playing device, a gamingsystem, mobile computing device, or any other type and/or form ofcomputing, telecommunications or media device that is capable ofcommunication. The computer system 100 has sufficient processor powerand memory capacity to perform the operations described herein. In someembodiments, the computing device 100 may have different processors,operating systems, and input devices consistent with the device. TheSamsung GALAXY smartphones, e.g., operate under the control of Androidoperating system developed by Google, Inc. GALAXY smartphones receiveinput via a touch interface.

In some embodiments, the computing device 100 is a gaming system. Forexample, the computer system 100 may comprise a PLAYSTATION 3, aPLAYSTATION 4, PLAYSTATION 5, or PLAYSTATION PORTABLE (PSP), or aPLAYSTATION VITA device manufactured by the Sony Corporation of Tokyo,Japan, a NINTENDO DS, NINTENDO 3DS, NINTENDO WII, NINTENDO WII U, or aNINTENDO SWITCH device manufactured by Nintendo Co., Ltd., of Kyoto,Japan, an XBOX 360, an XBOX ONE, an XBOX ONE S, XBOX ONE X, XBOX SERIESS, or an XBOX SERIES X device manufactured by the Microsoft Corporationof Redmond, Washington.

In some embodiments, the computing device 100 is a digital audio playersuch as the Apple IPOD, IPOD Touch, and IPOD NANO lines of devices,manufactured by Apple Computer of Cupertino, California. Some digitalaudio players may have other functionality, including, e.g., a gamingsystem or any functionality made available by an application from adigital application distribution platform. For example, the IPOD Touchmay access the Apple App Store. In some embodiments, the computingdevice 100 is a portable media player or digital audio player supportingfile formats including, but not limited to, MP3, WAV, M4A/AAC, WMAProtected AAC, AIFF, Audible audiobook, Apple Lossless audio fileformats and .mov, .m4v, and .mp4 MPEG-4 (H.264/MPEG-4 AVC) video fileformats.

In some embodiments, the computing device 100 is a tablet e.g. the IPADline of devices by Apple; GALAXY TAB family of devices by Samsung; orKINDLE FIRE, by Amazon.com, Inc. of Seattle, Washington. In otherembodiments, the computing device 100 is an eBook reader, e.g. theKINDLE family of devices by Amazon.com, or NOOK family of devices byBarnes & Noble, Inc. of New York City, New York.

In some embodiments, the communications device 102 includes acombination of devices, e.g. a smartphone combined with a digital audioplayer or portable media player. For example, one of these embodimentsis a smartphone, e.g. the IPHONE family of smartphones manufactured byApple, Inc.; a Samsung GALAXY family of smartphones manufactured bySamsung, Inc.; or a Motorola DROID family of smartphones. In yet anotherembodiment, the communications device 102 is a laptop or desktopcomputer equipped with a web browser and a microphone and speakersystem, e.g. a telephony headset. In these embodiments, thecommunications devices 102 are web-enabled and can receive and initiatephone calls. In some embodiments, a laptop or desktop computer is alsoequipped with a webcam or other video capture device that enables videochat and video call.

In some embodiments, the status of one or more machines 102, 106 in thenetwork 104 is monitored, generally as part of network management. Inone of these embodiments, the status of a machine may include anidentification of load information (e.g., the number of processes on themachine, CPU and memory utilization), of port information (e.g., thenumber of available communication ports and the port addresses), or ofsession status (e.g., the duration and type of processes, and whether aprocess is active or idle). In another of these embodiments, thisinformation may be identified by a plurality of metrics, and theplurality of metrics can be applied at least in part towards decisionsin load distribution, network traffic management, and network failurerecovery as well as any aspects of operations of the present solutiondescribed herein. Aspects of the operating environments and componentsdescribed above will become apparent in the context of the systems andmethods disclosed herein.

B. Generating and Formatting Teaching Media

The systems and methods of this technical solution provide techniquesfor the automatic generation of educational content for a variety ofdifferent presentation contexts. Often, teaching media leverage similarresources in different contexts to provide for a more cohesive learningexperience. For example, a graph, a photo, or a formula may appear in alesson document and also appear in a question as part of a problem set.Further, as remote learning continues to increase in popularity,automatic formatting of content for different devices and displayrequirements becomes necessary to ensure that students and teachers canprovide effective educational content in all contexts. Some examplerepresentations of content can include, for example, Word documents(e.g., in doc format, docx format, rich-text format, other wordprocessing formats, etc.), presentations or slides, online tests orquizzes, online or electronic textbooks, and digital flashcards, amongothers.

Conventionally, educators are required to manually format teachingcontent for each presentation context. Said another way, an educatormust manually prepare and format flashcards, presentation slides, andelectronic textbook pages using conventional formatting tools. However,such manual formatting tools, and manual formatting approaches ingeneral, often produce inconsistent and time consuming results. Further,if an educator makes a change to a content asset, the educator must thenmanually update and re-format each of the information resources thatinclude that asset, introducing additional opportunities for errors orother inconsistencies.

The systems and methods of this technical solution provide additionalformatting tools that can automatically generate and format informationresources from media content provided by educators. The systems andmethods can apply logic to granularly stored questions, explanatorycontent, images, videos, and other media content, that enables the samecontent to be automatically formatted and converted into multiple media,such as presentation slides, text-based questions, Word documents, andflashcards, among others. The systems and methods of this technicalsolution can automatically produce consistent content based on mediaassets and initial formatting criteria, thereby reducing materialscreation to mere selection and removing the tedium of activities likere-sizing pictures, weighting fonts, optimizing page breaks orgenerating personalized cover sheets for teaching content.

The systems and methods of this technical solution present improvementsin media generation and formatting systems. For example, compared toother implementations that rely on templates and storage of rich data,the systems and methods of this technical solution can separate the datato be rendered (e.g., the media content, etc.) from the styles andformatting that are to be applied to it for different contexts. Theformatting information can be stored, for example, in many differentlevels or locations, as described herein below. The presence ofadditional levels of formatting rules can “overwrite,” or supplant, theformatting rules of a lower priority or level.

For example, consider an image provided by an educator for inclusioninto an information resource, which is to be formatted into a variety ofcontent formats such as online questions, slides, or flashcards. Asdescribed in greater detail below, content can include a number ofspecific parameters that can be altered to suit a particular context. Inthis example, consider the “horizontal width” attribute of the image asone attribute that can be modified by the techniques herein to suitdifferent presentation contexts. Some example sources of the horizontalwidth attribute of the image can include an original width of theuploaded image, a horizontal width setting provided by the educator forthat image, a horizontal width setting provided by the educator for theimage in a particular context, such as a print context, a presentation(e.g., slides, etc.) context, or an online practice question context,among others, or a horizontal width value that is set dynamically by thesystem.

Further, the systems and methods of this technical solution can solve atwo-dimensional placement problem, which can operate with the followingconstraints: a minimum size of an image or graphic, a number of imagesor graphics in the content and their relationship to one another, theindependent units or formulas that need to be rendered, and interfacepreferences, such as display resolution, display area, or devicecapability, among others. Using the dynamic alignment techniquesdescribed herein, the systems and methods of this technical solution canformat and position multiple different types and items of media contentin a single information resource, such as a page of an electronictextbook, or an online question for a quiz or an exam, as well as theother information resource formats described herein (e.g., slides, Worddocuments, flashcards, etc.). Thus, the systems and methods of thistechnical solution provide improvements to educational contentgeneration systems by automatically applying optimal formatting to anyeducational materials for a specific teaching medium or context,generating multiple teaching media from a single piece of contentconcurrently and automatically, and reducing the amount of data entryand formatting work required to generate the teaching media.

Referring now to FIG. 2 , illustrated is a block diagram of an examplesystem 200 for generating and formatting teaching media in multipleformats for different contexts, in accordance with one or moreimplementations. The system 200 can include at least one educationalcontent system 205, at least one network 210, one or more client devices220A-220N (sometimes generally referred to as client device(s) 220), andat least one provider device 260. The educational content system 205 caninclude at least one media content receiver 230, at least formattingrules determiner 235, at least one destination format identifier 240, atleast one formatting rules modifier 245, at least one informationresource generator 250, at least one information resource communicator255, and at least one database 215. The database 215 can include mediacontent 270, formatting rules 275, and information resources 280. Insome implementations, the database 215 can be external to theeducational content system 205, for example, as a part of a cloudcomputing system or an external computing device in communication withthe devices (e.g., the educational content system 205, the clientdevices 220, the provider device 260, etc.) of the system 200 via thenetwork 210.

Each of the components (e.g., the educational content system 205, thenetwork 210, the client devices 220, the provider device 260, the mediacontent receiver 230, at least formatting rules determiner 235, thedestination format identifier 240, the formatting rules modifier 245,the information resource generator 250, the information resourcecommunicator 255, the database 215, etc.) of the system 200 can beimplemented using the hardware components or a combination of softwarewith the hardware components of a computing system, such as thecomputing system 100 detailed herein in conjunction with FIGS. 1A-1D, orany other computing system described herein. Each of the components ofthe educational content system 205 can perform any of thefunctionalities detailed herein.

The educational content system 205 can include at least one processorand a memory, e.g., a processing circuit. The memory can storeprocessor-executable instructions that, when executed by the processor,cause the processor to perform one or more of the operations describedherein. The processor may include a microprocessor, anapplication-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a field-programmablegate array (FPGA), etc., or combinations thereof. The memory mayinclude, but is not limited to, electronic, optical, magnetic, or anyother storage or transmission device capable of providing the processorwith program instructions. The memory may further include a floppy disk,CD-ROM, DVD, magnetic disk, memory chip, ASIC, FPGA, read-only memory(ROM), random-access memory (RAM), electrically erasable programmableROM (EEPROM), erasable programmable ROM (EPROM), flash memory, opticalmedia, or any other suitable memory from which the processor can readinstructions. The instructions may include code from any suitablecomputer programming language. The educational content system 205 caninclude one or more computing devices or servers that can performvarious functions as described herein. The educational content system205 can include any or all of the components and perform any or all ofthe functions of the computer system 100 described herein in conjunctionwith FIGS. 1A-1D.

The network 210 can include computer networks such as the Internet,local, wide, metro or other area networks, intranets, satellitenetworks, other computer networks such as voice or data mobile phonecommunication networks, and combinations thereof. The educationalcontent system 205 of the system 200 can communicate via the network210, for example, with one or more client devices 220 or with theprovider device 260. The network 210 may be any form of computer networkthat can relay information between the educational content system 205,the one or more client devices 220, and one or more information sources,such as web servers or external databases, amongst others. In someimplementations, the network 210 may include the Internet and/or othertypes of data networks, such as a local area network (LAN), a wide areanetwork (WAN), a cellular network, a satellite network, or other typesof data networks. The network 210 may also include any number ofcomputing devices (e.g., computers, servers, routers, network switches,etc.) that are configured to receive and/or transmit data within thenetwork 210. The network 210 may further include any number of hardwiredand/or wireless connections. Any or all of the computing devicesdescribed herein (e.g., the educational content system 205, the one ormore client devices 220, the provider device 260, the computer system100, etc.) may communicate wirelessly (e.g., via WiFi, cellular, radio,etc.) with a transceiver that is hardwired (e.g., via a fiber opticcable, a CAT5 cable, etc.) to other computing devices in the network210. Any or all of the computing devices described herein (e.g., theeducational content system 205, the one or more client devices 220, theprovider device 260, the computer system 100, etc.) may also communicatewirelessly with the computing devices of the network 210 via a proxydevice (e.g., a router, network switch, or gateway). In someimplementations, the network 210 can be similar to or can include thenetwork 104 or the cloud 108 described herein above in conjunction withFIGS. 1A and 1B.

Each of the client devices 220 can include at least one processor and amemory, e.g., a processing circuit. The memory can storeprocessor-executable instructions that, when executed by the processor,cause the processor to perform one or more of the operations describedherein. The processor can include a microprocessor, anapplication-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a field-programmablegate array (FPGA), etc., or combinations thereof. The memory caninclude, but is not limited to, electronic, optical, magnetic, or anyother storage or transmission device capable of providing the processorwith program instructions. The memory can further include a floppy disk,CD-ROM, DVD, magnetic disk, memory chip, ASIC, FPGA, read-only memory(ROM), random-access memory (RAM), electrically erasable programmableROM (EEPROM), erasable programmable ROM (EPROM), flash memory, opticalmedia, or any other suitable memory from which the processor can readinstructions. The instructions can include code from any suitablecomputer programming language. The client devices 220 can include one ormore computing devices or servers that can perform various functions asdescribed herein. The one or more client devices 220 can include any orall of the components and perform any or all of the functions of thecomputer system 100 described herein in conjunction with FIGS. 1A-1D.The client devices 220 can be, or can be similar to, the client devices102 described herein above in conjunction with FIGS. 1A-1D.

Each client device 220 can include, but is not limited to, a televisiondevice, a mobile device, smart phone, personal computer, a laptop, agaming device, a kiosk, or any other type of computing device. Eachclient device 220 can be implemented using hardware or a combination ofsoftware and hardware. Each client device 220 can include a displaydevice that can provide visual information, such as informationpresented as a result of executing instructions stored in the memory ofthe client device 220. The display device can include an liquid-crystaldisplay (LCD) device, an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display, alight-emitting diode (LED) display, a bi-stable display (e.g., e-ink,etc.), amongst others. The display device can present one or more userinterfaces on various regions of the display in accordance with theimplementations described herein. In some implementations, the displaydevice can include interactive elements, such as capacitive or resistivetouch sensors. Thus, the display device can be an interactive display(e.g., a touchscreen, a display, etc.), and can include one or moreinput/output (I/O) devices or interfaces. Each client device 220 canfurther include or be in communication with (e.g., via a communicationsbus coupled to the processors of the client devices 220, etc.) one ormore input devices, such as a mouse, a keyboard, or digital keypad,among others. The display can be used to present one or moreapplications as described herein, such as web browsers or nativeapplications. The display can include a border region (e.g., sideborder, top border, bottom border). The inputs received via theinput/output devices (e.g., touchscreen, mouse, keyboard, etc.) can bedetected by one or more event listeners, and indicate interactions withone or more user interface elements presented on the display device ofthe client devices 220. The interactions can result in interaction data,which can be stored and transmitted by the processing circuitry of theclient device 220 to other computing devices, such as those incommunication with the client devices 220. The interaction data caninclude, for example, interaction coordinates, an interaction type(e.g., click, swipe, scroll, tap, etc.), and an indication of anactionable object with which the interaction occurred. Thus, each clientdevice 220 can enable a user to interact with and/or select one or moreactionable objects presented as part of graphical user interfaces tocarry out various functionalities as described herein.

The client devices 220 can each execute one or more client applications,which can be a web browser or native application that presentseducational content provided by the educational content system 205. Theone or more client applications can cause the display device of one ormore client devices 220 to present a user interface that includeseducational content, such as presentation slides, word documents, onlinequestions, or electronic textbooks, among others. The application can bea web application (e.g., provided by the educational content system 205via the network 210, etc.), a native application, an operating systemresource, or some other form of executable instructions. In someimplementations, the client application can include a local application(e.g., local to a client device 220), hosted application, Software as aService (SaaS) application, virtual application, mobile application, andother forms of content. In some implementations, the application caninclude or correspond to applications provided by remote servers orthird party servers. In some implementations, the application can accessthe information resources 280 maintained by the database 215, andgenerate a user interface that displays one or more of the informationresources 280 on the display device of the client device 220 on whichthe client application is executing. In some implementations, the userinterface can include one or more actionable objects that correspond tomultiple choice question answers presented as part of the informationresource 280. In some implementations, the actionable object can be a“fill-in-the-blank” box that can accept user input, and transmit theinput to the educational content system 205 for storage or furtherprocessing. Such actionable objects can include user-selectablehyperlinks, buttons, graphics, videos, images, or other applicationfeatures that generate a signal that is processed by the applicationexecuting on the respective client device 220.

In embodiments, one or more client devices 220 can establish one or morecommunication sessions with the educational content system 205. The oneor more communication systems can each include an application session(e.g., virtual application), an execution session, a desktop session, ahosted desktop session, a terminal services session, a browser session,a remote desktop session, a URL session and/or a remote applicationsession. Each communication session can include encrypted and/or securesessions, which can include an encrypted file, encrypted data ortraffic.

Each of the client devices 220 can be computing devices configured tocommunicate via the network 210 to access the information resources 280,such as web pages via a web browser, or application resources via anative application executing on a client device 220. When accessing theinformation resources 280, the client device 220 can executeinstructions (e.g., embedded in the native applications, or a script inthe information resources 280, etc.) that cause the client devices todisplay educational content, which can include images, video, audio,quiz or exam questions, practice questions, or other types ofeducational content. As described herein, the client device 220 cantransmit one or more requests for educational content to the educationalcontent system 205, and can receive one or more responses that includethe requested content. An educational content request can include, forexample, a request for a lesson, a request for a question, a request foran information resource related to a topic, or a request for informationspecified in a query, among others.

In response to interactions with the various user interface elements,the client devices 220 can transmit information, such as accountinformation (e.g., changing account parameters, changing logininformation, etc.), interaction information, selections of questionanswers, provided answers to questions, selections of topics,categories, or lesson-based information, or other signals to theeducational content system 205. Generally, the client devices 220 canrequest and display educational content received from the educationalcontent system 205. The requests can include, for example, requests toaccess information from an educational lesson provided by the providerdevice 260, or information related to one or more queries provided bythe client devices 220. The request can be a hypertext transfer protocol(HTTP or HTTPS) request message, a file transfer protocol message, anemail message, a text message, or any other type of message that can betransmitted via the network 210.

The provider device 260 can include at least one processor and a memory,e.g., a processing circuit. The memory can store processor-executableinstructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processorto perform one or more of the operations described herein. The processorcan include a microprocessor, an application-specific integrated circuit(ASIC), a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), etc., or combinationsthereof. The memory can include, but is not limited to, electronic,optical, magnetic, or any other storage or transmission device capableof providing the processor with program instructions. The memory canfurther include a floppy disk, CD-ROM, DVD, magnetic disk, memory chip,ASIC, FPGA, read-only memory (ROM), random-access memory (RAM),electrically erasable programmable ROM (EEPROM), erasable programmableROM (EPROM), flash memory, optical media, or any other suitable memoryfrom which the processor can read instructions. The instructions caninclude code from any suitable computer programming language. Theprovider device 260 can include one or more computing devices or serversthat can perform various functions as described herein. The providerdevice 260 can include any or all of the components and perform any orall of the functions of the computer system 100 described herein inconjunction with FIGS. 1A-1D. The client devices 220 can be, or can besimilar to, the client devices 102 described herein above in conjunctionwith FIGS. 1A-1D.

The provider device 260 can be substantially similar to one or more ofthe client devices 220 described herein above, and can include any ofthe hardware components of the client devices 220, as well as performany of the functionalities of the client devices 220 as describedherein. In addition, the provider device 260 can communicate with theeducational content system 205 to provide media content 270, which canbe formatted into one or more information resources 280 as describedherein. The provider device 260 can be operated by one or more educatorsor educational content creators, and can provide the media content 270to the educational content system 205 via the network 210 in one or moreformatting requests. The formatting requests can be requests to generateformatted content using the media content 270 included in the formattingrequests. In some implementations, a formatting request can include oneor more initial formatting rules, which can be, or can be similar to,the formatting rules 275 described herein.

In some implementations, the provider device 260 can execute one or moreapplications, such as a web browser, that presents a user interface thatallows a user to transmit media content 270 to the educational contentsystem 205 in a formatting request. In some implementations, theformatting request can specify one or more information resources togenerate using the media content 270. In some implementations, theformatting request can include a selection of media content 270 alreadymaintained by the educational content system 205 to use in generatingspecified information resources 280. For example, the formatting requestcan specify one or more items of media content 270, one or moreformatting rules (e.g., an order of presentation of images, a size ofone or more images, a font size, a font type-face, etc.), and canspecify one or more destination formats (e.g., types of informationresources). In some implementations, the formatting request can be arequest to modify one or more formatting rules of existing informationresources.

The user interfaces presented on the display device of the providerdevice 260 can provide a user with access to each of the informationresources 280, the media content 270, and the formatting rules 275. Insome implementations, the provider device 260 can access only theinformation resources 280, the media content 270, and the formattingrules 275, which the provider device 260 is authorized to access. Forexample, the provider device 260 can access the functionality of theeducational content system 205 by first entering login credentials orother identification information that identifies an account of theprovider device 260 that is maintained by the educational content system205. The account can be associated with certain media content 270,formatting rules 275, and information resources 280, and which can thenbe accessed by the provider device 260 in response to the authenticationcredentials.

The database 215 can be a computer-readable memory that can store ormaintain any of the information described herein. The database 215 canmaintain one or more data structures, which may contain, index, orotherwise store each of the values, pluralities, sets, variables,vectors, numbers, or thresholds described herein. The database 215 canbe accessed using one or more memory addresses, index values, oridentifiers of any item, structure, or region maintained in the database215. The database 215 can be accessed by the components of theeducational content system 205, or any other computing device describedherein, such as the client devices 220 or the provider device 260, viathe network 210. In some implementations, the database 215 can beinternal to the educational content system 205. In some implementations,the database 215 can exist external to the educational content system205, and may be accessed via the network 210. The database 215 can bedistributed across many different computer systems or storage elements,and may be accessed via the network 210 or a suitable computer businterface. The educational content system 205 (or the componentsthereof) can store, in one or more regions of the memory of theeducational content system 205, or in the database 215, the results ofany or all computations, determinations, selections, identifications,generations, constructions, or calculations in one or more datastructures indexed or identified with appropriate values. Any or allvalues stored in the database 215 may be accessed by any computingdevice described herein, such as the educational content system 205, toperform any of the functionalities or functions described herein. Insome implementations, the database 215 can be similar to or include thestorage 128 described herein above in conjunction with FIG. 1C. In someimplementations, instead of being internal to the educational contentsystem 205, the database 215 can be a distributed storage medium in acloud computing system such as the cloud 108 detailed herein inconnection with FIG. 1B.

The database 215 can store media content 270, which can be provided bythe provider device 260 as described herein. In some implementations,the media content 270 can be stored in association with an identifier(e.g., an authentication credential, a username, etc.) of the user thatprovided the media content 270. The media content 270 can include anyform of educational media, such as text, images, video, audio, orinstructions to display images, video, or text in an informationresource. The media content 270 can be stored in association with one ormore tags, topics, or category identifiers that indicate the type ofinformation provided by the media content 270. The media content 270 canbe stored as individual content items in one or more data structures,and can be stored in association with a timestamp corresponding to thetime the item of media content 270 was stored in the database 215. Themedia content 270 can have various presentation attributes. For example,images can include presentation attributes such as image height, imagewidth, image format (e.g., BMP, PNG, JPEG, SVG, etc.), image bit-depth,and other image attributes. Presentation attributes for videos caninclude video duration, video codec, sound codec, and video resolution(e.g., width, height, etc.), closed captioning information (e.g., textcontent, etc.), among others. Presentation attributes for text caninclude font type-face, font size, text location, and other information.In some implementations, an item of media content 270 can include anidentifier to a different item of media content 270. For example, anitem of media content 270 can include instructions that cause the itemof media content 270 to be presented on an information resource with asecond item of media content. In some implementations, the presentationattributes of the item of media content 270 can specify a relativeposition of the item of content to the second item of media content 270when presented on an information resource.

The database 215 can store or maintain formatting rules 275. Theformatting rules 275 can be instructions stored in association with oneor more items of the media content 270. The formatting rules 275 canspecify one or more modifications to apply to the presentationattributes of the media content 270 for certain presentation contexts.The presentation contexts can be, for example, a type or format of aninformation resource on which a particular item on media content 270will be presented. The formatting rules 275 can be stored in associationwith one or more levels, tiers, or priority levels. In general,formatting rules 275 that have a higher priority, or level, can overrideor supersede a formatting rule 275 for a presentation attribute of anitem of the media content 270. The lowest priority level of theformatting rules 275 for a presentation attribute of an item of mediacontent 270 can be a default presentation attribute. For example, theheight of an image when uploaded to the educational content system 205can be treated as the default value for the image height, as it has notbeen modified by the educator or for any particular context. Other,additional formatting rules 275 can specify different priorities, orlevels, for a particular item of the media content 270.

In some implementations, the priority or level can be manually specifiedvia input to the provider device 260. For example, a user of theprovider device 260 can specify an image height (e.g., via userinterface input) for an image (e.g., an item of the media content 270)while uploading the image to the educational content system 205. In someimplementations, formatting rules 275 can be specified for certainpresentation attributes of the items of media content 270 for aparticular context. Such formatting rules 275 can supersede, oroverride, default formatting rules 275 for that presentation attributeor formatting rules 275 set for that presentation attribute at uploadtime (e.g., applied globally across all contexts, etc.). Another type ofthe formatting rules 275 that supersedes any of the preceding formattingrules 275 for a particular presentation attribute of an item of mediacontent 270 can be a formatting rule 275 that is dynamically determinedby the educational content system 205, as described herein. Suchformatting rules 275 can supersede those set manually by a user for aparticular context, and can themselves specify values for presentationparameters of contexts in among certain presentation contexts. Forexample, the educational content system 205 (or the components thereof)may dynamically apply a formatting rule 275 for a particularpresentation context but not other presentation contexts. Thus, for theparticular context, the formatting rules 275 determined by theeducational content system 205 would be used, and other formatting rules275 would be used for the same media content when presented in otherpresentation contexts. One useful feature of the systems and methodsdescribed herein are the separation of the media content 270 and theformatting rules 275 that govern how the media content 270 is to bepresented. By presenting media content 270 differently in differentcontexts, using the level-based formatting rules 275 described herein,the systems and methods of this technical solution provide improvementsto educational content generation and presentation systems.

The database 215 can store or maintain one or more information resources280. The information resources can be resources that present specifiedmedia content (e.g., specified by instructions in the informationresources 280, etc.), according to appropriate formatting rules 275.Said another way, each information resource 280 can specify one or moreitems of media content 270, and the educational content system 205 candetermine which formatting rules 275 to apply to the specified mediacontent 270 to display the specified media content 270 in theinformation resource 280. In some implementations, the informationresources 280 can specify which of the formatting rules 275 to apply tothe media content 270 specified in the information resource. Asdescribed herein, the information resources 280 can include, web pages,online quizzes, online exams, practice textbooks, native applicationpages, word processing documents, packaged document format (PDF)documents, presentation slides, flashcards, or any other type ofinformation presentation medium described herein. The informationresources 280 can be accessed by one or more provider devices 260, orthe client devices 220. The provider device 260 can access and modifythe information resources 280, the media content 270, and the formattingrules 275 via a user interface presented on the provider device 260.Each of the components of the educational content system 205 can access,update, or modify the media content 270, the formatting rules 275, orthe information resources 280, to carry out functionalities detailedherein.

In some implementations, an information resource 280 can be, or caninclude, one or more presentation slides. The presentation slidesthemselves can include any type of media content 270, such as questions,notes, explanatory content, text, images, video, audio, or any othertype of media content 270. In some implementations, presentation slidescan include media content 270 that is displayed across multipledisplays. For example, a portion of the information resource 280designated to be displayed on a presentation display can present primarymedia content 270, such as questions, answer options, sub-questions,hints, or other teaching content. In addition, secondary media content270 of the information resource 280 can be displayed on a display of thepresenter (e.g., a teacher or educational content provider). Thesecondary media content 270 can be similar to the primary media content270 while including additional teaching information, such as explanatorytext, presentation notes, correct question answers, or other secondaryteaching content. The information resource 280 can include instructions,such as the formatting rules 275, that cause the display of thepresenter to render one or more of the primary media content 270 or thesecondary media content 270, while the presentation display (e.g., adisplay presented to one or more students) can include just the primarymedia content 270. As described herein, the educational content system205 can generate such information resources 280, including appropriateformatting rules 275, using the techniques described herein such thatthe primary media content 270 of the information resource is displayedon the presentation display, and the secondary media content 270 isdisplayed on the display of the presenter.

Referring now to the operations of the educational content system 205,the media content receiver 230 can receive media content 270 from aprovider device 260 or a client device 220. The media content 270 caninclude, or specify, one or more media modalities. The media modalitiescan be, for example, a media format such as an image, a video, audiocontent, text-based content, or any combination thereof. For example,the media content 270 can be a practice question that includes one ormore images, text content (e.g., LaTeX formulas and surrounding text,etc.), and one or more question answers (e.g., multiple choice options,fill-in-the-blank, etc.). Each of the modalities in the media contentcan include one or more presentation attributes. The presentationattributes can correspond to an aspect of how individual contentmodalities of the media content 270 are to be presented on apresentation resource, such as the information resources 280.

For example, a presentation attribute for an image can be an image size,an image position, image colors (e.g., color depth, bit depth,grayscale, etc.), image interactive features (e.g., zoom, pan, etc.), orother presentation features. Presentation attributes for text caninclude font size, font typeface, font colors, character spacing, orother presentation features of text based content. Presentationattributes of video can include video duration, video closed captioninginformation (e.g., text information for closed captions, timinginformation for closed captions, language information, etc.), languageinformation, video codec information, audio codec information, videosize (e.g., width, height, etc.), video position, video colors (e.g.,color depth, bit depth, grayscale, etc.), image interactive features(e.g., zoom, pan, mute, full-screen, increase or decrease volume, etc.),among others. As described herein, in some implementations, the mediacontent receiver 230 can receive media content 270 as part of a requestto format media content into one or more information resources, whichcan be presented in different presentation contexts.

In some implementations, the media content 270 received from theprovider device 260 or the client device 220 can specify preliminarylayout information. As described herein above, the media content 270received from the provider device 260 or the client device 220 caninclude multiple media modalities (e.g., one or more images, text,videos, audio, etc.). Each of these items can make up the media content270, and can include preliminary layout information. For example, if themedia content 270 is a practice question that includes an image and textinformation, the media content 270 can further specify how the imageshould be presented relative to the text information. Furthering thisexample, the media content 270 can include preliminary formattinginformation that specifies the relative position of the image to thetext information. Likewise, certain text information (e.g., LaTeXformulas, etc.) can specify preliminary positioning or formattingrequirements (e.g., to be placed at top of the question, all to beplaced on one line, etc.). Upon receiving the media content 270 from theprovider device 260 or the client device 220, the media content receiver230 can store the media content 270 in one or more data structures inthe memory of the educational content system 205 or in the database 215.

The formatting rules determiner 235 can determine initial formattingrules 275 for the media content 270. The formatting rules determiner 235can determine the initial formatting rules 275 based on the presentationattributes of each of the media modalities present in the media content270. In some implementations, the formatting rules determiner 235 candetermine the initial formatting rules 275 in response to receiving themedia content 270 from the provider device 260 or from the client device220. To determine the initial formatting rules 275 for the media content270, the formatting rules determiner 235 can identify each of the mediacontent 270 that corresponds to each of the media modalities present inthe media content. For example, if the media content 270 provided to theeducational content system 205 is a practice question that includes textdata, image data, and video data, the formatting rules determiner 235can identify (e.g., parse, extract, etc.) each presentation attribute ofeach of the text data, image data, and video data in the practicequestion. The formatting rules determiner 235 can determine initialformatting rules 275 of the media content 270 as the default values ofeach of the presentation attributes of each media type (e.g., modality,etc.) present in the media content. For example, if the media content270 includes an image, the formatting rules determiner 235 can determinethe presentation attributes of the image (e.g., image height, imagewidth, image color, image position relative to other media content 270,etc.) as the default formatting rules 275.

In some implementations, the formatting rules determiner 235 candetermine the initial formatting rules 275 as including formatting rulesspecified by a user from the provider device 260 or the client device220. For example, as described herein above, the provider device 260 orthe client device 220 can provide media content 270 to the educationalcontent system 205, and can specify certain formatting requirements forthe content. The formatting rules determiner 235 can store the defaultformatting rules 275 (as above), at the lowest priority (or level), andcan store the user-specified formatting rules 275 as part of the initialformatting rules 275 at a higher level than the default formatting rules275. In some implementations, the provider device 260 or the clientdevice 220 can select a priority (or a level) for one or more of theformatting rules 275 of the presentation attributes of the mediacontent. In some implementations, the provider device 260 or the clientdevice 220 can provide additional formatting rules 275 for the mediacontent 270 that apply to the media content 270 when the media content270 is presented in different contexts (e.g., in different types ofinformation resources, etc.). In such implementations, the formattingrules determiner 235 can store the additional formatting rules 275 forthe presentation attributes of the media content in association with anidentifier of specified context to which the additional formatting rulespertain. The additional formatting rules 275 can be stored as part ofthe initial formatting rules for the media content at a higher priority(or level) than the other presentation attributes for the specifiedcontext.

Although the above description of determining initial formatting rules275 for the media content 270 can apply to a single item of content(e.g., a single image, text segment, audio file, video, etc.), it shouldbe understood that the formatting rules determiner 235 can determineinitial formatting rules 275 for each presentation attribute of eachitem of content provided as part of the media content 270. Each item ofcontent (e.g., each having a media modality, etc.) in the media contentprovided by the provider device 260 or the client device 220 can bereferred to as a portion of the media content 270. Thus, the formattingrules determiner 235 can determine initial formatting rules 275corresponding to each presentation attribute of each portion of themedia content 270 provided by the provider device 260 or the clientdevice 220. In some implementations, the formatting rules determiner 235can determine the initial formatting rules preliminary layoutinformation provided by the provider device 260 or the client device220, in connection with the media content 270. For example, theformatting rules determiner 235 can determine the initial formattingrules 275 for each presentation attribute as corresponding to thepreliminary layout information indicated in the above. The preliminarylayout information can indicate, for example, the relative size of twoimages to one another, the relative position of two images to oneanother when presented as part of an information resource 280, among anyother layout information described herein.

The destination format identifier 240 can identify a destination formatfor the media content 270. The destination format can include at leastone formatting requirement. A formatting requirement can correspond to arequirement for different types of content (e.g., different contentmodalities, etc.). In some implementations, the destination formatidentifier 240 can identify the destination format by transmitting oneor more queries to the computing device that provided the media content270 (e.g., the provider device 260, the client device 220, etc.). Thequeries can include one or more potential destination formats, which canbe presented in one or more user interfaces on a display of the providerdevice 260. The user interfaces can have actionable objects that allow auser to select one or more of the destination formats. The destinationformats can correspond to a type of information resource that the mediacontent 270 can be formatted into using the formatting rules 275. Thedestination formats can include, for example, word documents,presentation slides, flash cards, electronic textbook pages, webpages,native application resources, online quiz questions, online practicequestions, or online exam questions, among others. Upon selecting one ormore of the potential destination formats, the provider device 260 orthe client device 220 can transmit a message that indicates each of theselected potential destination formats to the educational content system205. The destination format identifier 240 can receive the message andparse the selection of the one or more selected destination formats. Insome implementations, the message can specify (e.g., via user selection)certain portions of the media content 270 as primary media content 270for a presentation display or secondary media content 270 for apresenter display.

In some implementations, the destination format identifier 240 candetermine a destination format based on a device type of a client device220 that requests media content 270 from the educational content system205. For example, one or more of the client devices 220 can transmit arequest to the educational content system 205 that requests a specificitem of the media content 270, such as a practice question. The requestcan include the type of device that is requesting the media content 270.The type of the device can include the display capabilities (e.g.,display resolution, etc.) of the client device 220 and the displaycontext (e.g., web browser, native application, etc.) where therequested media content 270 is to be displayed. Likewise, in someimplementations, the destination format identifier can determine one ormore portions of the media content 270 to designate as primary mediacontent 270 for display on a presentation display, and other portions ofthe media content 270 to designate as secondary media content 270 for apresenter display.

The formatting rules modifier 245 can modify the initial formattingrules 275 for the media content based on the formatting requirement ofthe one or more destination formats identified by the destination formatidentifier 240. The formatting rules modifier 245 can generate modifiedformatting rules 275. As described herein above, each destination format(e.g., formats of the various types of information resources describedherein, etc.), can have certain formatting requirements. For example, apage of an electronic textbook can have predetermined page dimensions,and can have a predetermined region for rendering media content 270. Toaccommodate such formatting requirements, the formatting rules modifier245 can generate formatting rules that supersede the initialuser-specified formatting rules 275 determined by the formatting rulesdeterminer 235.

In some implementations, the formatting rules modifier 245 can modifythe initial formatting rules 275 for the media content 270 based onpresentation capabilities of the device type on which the media content270 will be presented. For example, the presentation capabilities canindicate a maximum horizontal resolution and a maximum verticalresolution of content displayed on the device. To accommodate thesecapabilities, the formatting rules modifier 245 can modify the initialformatting rules 275 by generating an additional formatting rule for themedia content 270 that has a priority value that supersedes that of theinitial formatting rules 275. The additional formatting rules can modifythe presentation attributes of the media content 270 (e.g., thewidth/height of images, the font size, character spacing of text, etc.)to fit within the constraints of the device that will be displaying themedia content. The modified formatting rules 275 can be stored inassociation with an identifier of the device. In some implementations,the formatting rules modifier 245 can modify the formatting rules 275for primary portions of the media content 270 and secondary portions ofthe media content 270. For example, the formatting rules modifier 245can generate formatting rules 275 that cause primary media content 270to be displayed on a first display, such as a presentation display, andsecondary media content 270 to be displayed on a secondary display, suchas a display of a presenter. As such, the formatting rules modifier 245can generate formatting rules for media content by modifying the initialformatting rules to cause portions of the media content 270 to only bevisible on certain displays in a multi-display environment. Examples ofmulti-display environments include a presentation environment, which caninclude a presentation display shown to students and a presenter displayvisible only to an educator. Similar environments can include laptopswith auxiliary screens, or displaying content across one or more devicessuch as a personal computer and a smartphone, among others.

In some implementations, the formatting rules modifier 245 can modifythe initial formatting rules 275 for the media content 270 based onminimum and maximum values of the presentation attributes (e.g., of arange of possible values of the presentation attributes, etc.) for themedia modalities (e.g. each portion of media content, etc.) present inthe media content 270. The minimum and maximum values for a particularmodality can be a predetermined range of practical values for thepresentation attributes of the portions of media content 270. Thesevalues can be stored in association with an identifier of the particularmodality. For example, a minimum font size can be a 6-point font,because font sizes smaller than 6-point font are practically unreadable.Likewise, a maximum font size can be 72-point font, because larger fontswould otherwise obscure other portions of the media content. It shouldbe understood that different ranges for a presentation attribute of themedia content 270 can be established for different presentation contexts(e.g., different types of information resources, etc.). Although theabove example describes the maximum and minimum values for font size, itshould understood that minimum and maximum values can be determined forany type of presentation attribute of any media content 270 type (e.g.,any media modality such as videos, images, audio, etc.) as describedherein.

The minimum and maximum values for a presentation attribute of the mediacontent presentation context (e.g., destination format, etc.) can beconsidered as part of the formatting requirements of that presentationformat. However, in some implementations, the range of possiblepresentation for a particular type of media content 270 can be discrete,and thus have a limited set of values that can be chosen for a givendestination format. In such circumstances, the formatting rules modifier245 can select one of the presentation attributes in the range definedby the minimum and the maximum values of the presentation attributesbased on the formatting requirements of the destination format. Forexample, if the destination format is a web page that will be displayedon a mobile device, the formatting rules modifier 275 can modify theinitial formatting rules 275 by adding an additional formatting rulewith a higher priority for that destination format (e.g., presentationcontext, etc.). The additional formatting rule can specify that thepresentation attribute should be modified to the selected value withinthe range defined by the minimum and maximum values of the presentationattribute when the particular media content 270 is displayed in thedestination format. The formatting rules modifier 245 can perform suchoperations for one or more of the media modalities (e.g., content types,etc.) present in the media content 270.

In another example, the formatting rules modifier 245 can modify theinitial formatting rules 275 for images, such that the presentationattributes (e.g., image width, image height, etc.) of one or more imagesin the media content 270. For example, the formatting rules modifier 245can modify the initial formatting rules 275 for the media content 270 bydetermining an adjusted size for the one or more images in the mediacontent 270. To do so, the formatting rules modifier 245 can access theformatting requirements for the destination format, and identify atleast one of a maximum possible height for the image or a maximumpossible width for the image. For example, if the preliminary layoutinformation specified when the media content 270 was provided to theeducational content system 205 indicates that an image can occupy themaximum width of the destination format (e.g., occupy the width of apage of a textbook, a powerpoint slide, etc.), the formatting rulesmodifier 245 can modify the formatting rules 275 by adding an additionalformatting rule (with a greater priority than the other formatting rulesfor that destination format) that specifies the width of the image to beequal to the maximum possible width for that destination format. Toproperly communicate the information in the image, the formatting rulesmodifier 245 can also perform similar operations (e.g., adding anadditional formatting rule as described herein, etc.) to also modify theheight of the image to maintain the aspect ratio of the image. Theformatting rules modifier 245 can determine the aspect ratio of theimage by accessing the original dimensions of the image, as indicated inthe media content 270 stored in the database 215.

In some implementations, the formatting rules modifier 245 can utilize amachine learning model to modify the initial formatting rules 275 forthe media content 270. The machine learning model can be, for example, alinear regression model, a logistic regression model, a ridge regressionmodel, a lasso regression model, a polynomial regression model, aBayesian regression model, or any other type of machine learning model(e.g., a neural network, a recurrent neural network, a sparse vectormachine (SVM) model, a decision tree model, a random forest model,etc.). The formatting rules modifier 245 can take, as input to themachine learning model, the default presentation attributes of the mediacontent (e.g., font size, image width, image height, etc.), as well asany initial formatting rules 275 (e.g., any specified by the user atupload time, etc.), and any formatting requirements or constraints ofthe destination format, such as the overall destination format width andheight. In some implementations, the machine learning model can betrained to optimize for maximum values of engagement (e.g., userinteraction or user viewing time, etc.), retention (e.g., number ofquestions correctly answered across many devices, etc.), andmonetization. The machine learning model can be trained using machinelearning techniques, including supervised learning, unsupervisedlearning, semi-supervised learning, or combinations thereof. Thus, theformatting rules modifier 245 can modify the formatting rules 275 usingmachine learning models, as described herein. An example depiction ofthe data flow of the formatting rules modifier 245 using the machinelearning model model to modify the formatting rules is described hereinbelow in conjunction with FIG. 3 .

In some implementations, the machine learning model can be trained tooptimize the layout of the content by modifying the formatting rules 275based on historic user interactions. For example, the formatting rulesmodifier 245 may receive user input (e.g., interactions) withinteractive elements of the media content 270, and use the user inputsto track a total number of interactions that result in a desired outcome(e.g., a navigation to a particular web page, a navigation to aparticular domain, a particular subsequent interaction, answering asubsequent question correctly, a purchase, etc.). The interactioninformation can include layout information for the user interfaceelement with which the user interacted, such as position, size, or style(e.g., fonts, graphics, etc.), and identifiers of adjacent items ofmedia content 270, among others. The formatting rules modifier 245 cantrain the machine learning model by providing properties of the item ofmedia content 270 and the desired outcome (e.g., resulting frominteraction with the item of media content 270, as input to the machinelearning model, and use the known historic interaction outcome data,along with the historic interaction information for the media content270, as ground truth data to train the machine learning model. Theformatting rules modifier 245 therefore uses historic interaction dataas training data for the machine learning model to optimize placement,size, and style, among other attributes and formatting rules 275, for adesired interaction outcome (e.g., engagement, monetization, retention,etc.).

Referring briefly now to FIG. 3 , illustrated is a data flow diagram 300of formatting rules being generated using a regression model 310. Asshown, the regression model 310 can take, as input, the parameters ofthe media content 270, any initial formatting rules 275 provided inconjunction with the media content 270 (e.g., preliminary layoutinformation, sizing information, etc.), and information about thedestination format (e.g., sizing constraints, color constraints, etc.).The information about the destination format can specify an area inwhich the media content 270 can be displayed. For example, if certainpreliminary layout information, or other formatting rules 275, specifythat certain content (e.g., other media content 270, etc.) has alreadybeen placed on the destination information resource, then theinformation about the destination formation can specify constraints(e.g., possible open areas to place media content 270, etc.) for thedestination format. The regression model 310 can be trained on exampledata sets having known values for the optimal layout and presentationattributes for each item of media content 270 in the training data. Theregression model 310 can provide, as output, the maximum size of thepresentation attributes of the media content 270 such that it fitswithin the constraints of the destination format. The formatting rulesmodifier 245 can store the output value (e.g., the maximum size of thepresentation attributes, etc.) in association with the media content270, and in association with an identifier of the destination format.The formatting rules modifier 245 can use the maximum size of the mediacontent 270 determined by the regression model to modify the initialformatting rules 275, by adding an additional formatting rule 275 thatsupersedes the initial formatting rules 275 for the destination format.

The modified formatting rules 275 for the destination format can specifythe presentation parameters (e.g., size, relative position, etc.) of themedia content 270 when the media content is rendered in the destinationformat. The modified formatting rules 275 can specify, for example,adjusted font sizes for text-based data, adjusted image sizes for imagesin the media content 270, adjusted video sizes or formats for videos inthe media content. In some implementations, if the destination format isprint media, the adjusted video information can be a QR code that isrendered in an image in the destination format, because videos cannot berendered in print. The QR code can specify one or more universalresource identifiers (URIs) that identify a location of the video. Acomputing device can scan the QR code, and navigate to the location ofthe media content. Similar behavior can occur with other types of mediacontent 270, such as three-dimensional models, interactive content(e.g., graphs, puzzles, etc.), or other online content that is otherwiseunsuitable for a print medium. The adjusted values specified in themodified formatting rules 275 can be used to generate one or more of theinformation resources 280 described herein, which render the mediacontent 270 according to the optimal presentation parameters provided bythe regression model.

Referring back now to FIG. 2 , in some implementations, the formattingrules modifier 245 can generate composite formatting rules 275, whichcan include formatting rules for more than one portion of media content270. For example, if more than one item of media content can bespecified on a single information resource (e.g., two practice questionson a single page of an electronic textbook, etc.), the formatting rulesmodifier 245 can generate formatting rules for more than one item of themedia content 270. To do so, the formatting rules modifier 245 canidentify second media content 270 having second initial formatting rules275, for example, based on a request to generate an information resource280 that includes at least two items of media content 270 received fromthe provider device 260 or the client device 220. Each item of mediacontent 270 that is to be included in the information resource 270 canbe associated with initial formatting rules 275 for the presentationattributes of the media content 270. Using the initial formatting rules275 of each item of media content, the formatting rules modifier 245 cangenerate composite formatting rules using a regression model similar tothat described herein above in connection with FIG. 3 . The regressionmodel can take, as input, the default presentation parameters of eachitem of media content, any initial formatting rules 275 that modifythose presentation parameters, and the formatting requirements of thedestination resource. The regression model can provide as output theoptimal height (or other dimensions) of each item of the media content270, such that each of the items of media content can be presented onthe destination information resource 280 concurrently without losing orobscuring any information in the media content 270. Thus, the formattingrules modifier 245 can

Using the optimal dimensions for each item of media content, theformatting rules modifier 245 can generate composite formatting rulesfor the media content 270 and the destination information resource. Forexample, the formatting rules modifier 275 can identify, based on theoutput of the regression model, a first portion of the compositeformatting rules 275 corresponding to a first item of media content 270(e.g., first optimal presentation attributes such as size, etc.), and asecond portion of the composite formatting rules 275 corresponding tothe second media content 270 (e.g., second optimal presentationattributes such as size, etc.). The composite formatting rules 275 caninclude a combination of formatting rules 275 for each item of mediacontent 270 when the media content 270 is displayed with other items ofmedia content 270 specified in the composite formatting rules 275. Ingeneral, the composite formatting rules 275 can specify the size andrelative position of multiple items of media content 270 when the mediacontent is presented in the destination information resource.

Once the modified formatting rules 275 have been generated for the mediacontent 270 for each specified destination format, the informationresource generator 250 can generate an information resource 280 thatincludes media content 270 specified by the provider device 260 or theclient device 220. As described herein, the information resource 280 canbe any sort of resource that displays information, such as presentationslides, word-processing documents, flash cards, online quiz questions,online exam questions, online practice questions, electronic textbookpages, or printable textbook pages, among others. The informationresources 280 can be generated by parsing the formatting rules 275,which can be stored as a generic markup language that specifiesdifferent parameters of the media content 270, such as display position,display size, and other rendering information, and translate the genericmarkup language into an information that is suitable for an informationresource. For example, Word processing documents can utilize XML markupto specify how content is displayed in word-processing documents. Theinformation resource generator 250 can identify, or each presentationattribute of a given portion of the media content 270, each formattingrule 275 having the highest priority, and translate that formatting ruleinto suitable XML or other language suitable for the format of thedestination information resource 280. The information resource generator250 can perform such functionality for each item of the media content270 until the information resource has been populated as desired.

In some implementations, the information resource generator 250 cangenerate the information resource 280 to include all of the mediacontent 270 specified in composite formatting rules 275, which asdescribed herein above, specify formatting rules 275 for multiple itemsof media content 270 that to appear on a single information resource. Todo so, information resource generator 250 can perform similar processingsteps, but apply the composite formatting rules 275 to each item of themedia content 270 that is to appear on the destination informationresource 280. In general, certain destination information resources 280may include multiple display portions (e.g., multiple pages in a worddocument, etc.). In such circumstances, the information resourcegenerator 250 can generate the information resource to include as manypages or portions necessary to display each item of the media contentefficiently according to the composite formatting rules 275. Theinformation resource generator 250 can repeat each of the processesidentified above for each of the information resources requested by theprovider device 260 or the client device 220, as described herein above.Upon generating the information resources 280, the information resourcegenerator 250 can store each of the information resources 280 inassociation with the media content 270 forming a part of the informationresources 280 in the database 215. In some implementations, theinformation resource generator 250 can generate information resources280 that can be presented in multi-display environments, in accordancewith the formatting rules 275, as described herein. For example, theinformation resource generator 280 can generate presentations thatinclude primary media content 270 shown on a presentation display, andsecondary media content 270 shown on a display of a presenter.

The secondary media content 270 may include any type of additional mediacontent 270 that may be relevant to a presenter, but may not necessarilyneed to be shown to a presentation audience. Such information caninclude, for example, non-presentation notes or other materials oraspects of a question (e.g., explanations, answers, etc.). As describedherein, the formatting rules modifier 245 can format this informationsuch that the secondary media content 270 is automatically displayed onthe display of the presenter, while the primary media content 270 isdisplayed on the presentation display. Secondary media content 270 canbe formatted for any question, options, sub-parts, hints, or any othertype of media content 270. In some implementations, the secondary mediacontent 270 may be selected or formatted based on user input (e.g., fromthe provider device 260 when providing or formatting the media content270, etc.). The presenter display can be a display of any type ofcomputing device, including but not limited to auxiliary screens,laptops, smart phones, or mobile devices.

Once the information resources 280 have been generated by theinformation resource generator 250, the information resourcecommunicator 255 can transmit requested information resources 280 to arequesting computing device, such as a client device 220 or the providerdevice 260. Each of the generated information resources 280 cancorrespond to an identifier, such as a URI, or other content identifier.The URI, when accessed by a computing device, can cause the informationresource communicator 255 to access the information resource 280 that isidentified by the URI, and transmit the appropriate information resource280 to the requesting computing device. In some implementations, therequesting computing device must have authorization to view therequested information resource 280. In such implementations, theinformation resource communicator 255 can receive authenticationcredentials (e.g., login information, secret keys, etc.) as part of therequest for the information resource 280. The information resourcecommunicator 255 can verify the authentication credentials by comparingthe authentication credentials to authentication requirements for therequested information resources 280. The authentication requirements canbe specified, for example, by the provider device 260 when requestingthe generation of the media content 270 into one or more destinationformats (e.g., the information resources 280, etc.). The informationresources 280 can thus be stored in association with the authenticationrequirements, which are then used to authenticate computing devices thatrequest the information resources 280 from the educational contentsystem 205.

Referring now to FIG. 4 , depicted is an illustrative flow diagram of amethod 400 for generating and formatting teaching media in multipleformats for different contexts. The method 400 can be executed,performed, or otherwise carried out by the educational content system205, the computer system 100 described herein in conjunction with FIGS.1A-1D, or any other computing devices described herein. In briefoverview of the method 400, the educational content system (e.g., theeducational content system 205, etc.) can receive media content (STEP402), determine initial formatting rules (STEP 404), identify adestination formation (STEP 406), determine whether the content iscompatible with a format (DECISION 408), modify each item of mediacontent (STEP 410), and generate an information resource (STEP 412).

In further detail of the method 400, the educational content system canreceive media content (STEP 402). The educational content system canreceive media content (e.g., the media content 270, etc.) from aprovider device (e.g. the provider device 260, etc.) or a client device(e.g., the client device 220, etc.). The media content can include, orspecify, one or more media modalities. The media modalities can be, forexample, a media format such as an image, a video, audio content,text-based content, or any combination thereof. For example, the mediacontent can be a practice question that includes one or more images,text content (e.g., LaTeX formulas and surrounding text, etc.), and oneor more question answers (e.g., multiple choice options,fill-in-the-blank, etc.). Each of the modalities in the media contentcan include one or more presentation attributes. The presentationattributes can correspond to an aspect of how individual contentmodalities of the media content are to be presented on a presentationresource.

For example, a presentation attribute for an image can be an image size,an image position, image colors (e.g., color depth, bit depth,grayscale, etc.), image interactive features (e.g., zoom, pan, etc.), orother presentation features. Presentation attributes for text caninclude font size, font typeface, font colors, character spacing, orother presentation features of text based content. Presentationattributes of video can include video duration, video closed captioninginformation (e.g., text information for closed captions, timinginformation for closed captions, language information, etc.), languageinformation, video codec information, audio codec information, videosize (e.g., width, height, etc.), video position, video colors (e.g.,color depth, bit depth, grayscale, etc.), image interactive features(e.g., zoom, pan, mute, full-screen, increase or decrease volume, etc.),among others. As described herein, in some implementations, theeducational content system can receive media content as part of arequest to format media content into one or more information resources,which can be presented in different presentation contexts.

In some implementations, the media content received from the providerdevice or the client device can specify preliminary layout information.As described herein above, the media content received from the providerdevice or the client device can include multiple media modalities (e.g.,one or more images, text, videos, audio, etc.). Each of these items canmake up the media content, and can include preliminary layoutinformation. For example, if the media content is a practice questionthat includes an image and text information, the media content canfurther specify how the image should be presented relative to the textinformation. Furthering this example, the media content can includepreliminary formatting information that specifies the relative positionof the image to the text information. Likewise, certain text information(e.g., LaTeX formulas, etc.) can specify preliminary positioning orformatting requirements (e.g., to be placed at top of the question, allto be placed on one line, etc.). Upon receiving the media content fromthe provider device or the client device, the educational content systemcan store the media content in one or more data structures in the memoryof the educational content system or in a database (e.g., the database215, etc.).

The educational content system can determine initial formatting rules(e.g. the initial formatting rules 275, etc.) for the media content(STEP 404). The educational content system can determine the initialformatting rules based on the presentation attributes of each of themedia modalities present in the media content. In some implementations,the educational content system can determine the initial formattingrules in response to receiving the media content from the providerdevice or from the client device. To determine the initial formattingrules for the media content, the educational content system can identifyeach of the media content that corresponds to each of the mediamodalities present in the media content. For example, if the mediacontent provided to the educational content system is a practicequestion that includes text data, image data, and video data, theformatting rules determine can identify (e.g., parse, extract, etc.)each presentation attribute of each of the text data, image data, andvideo data in the practice question. The educational content system candetermine initial formatting rules of the media content as the defaultvalues of each of the presentation attributes of each media type (e.g.,modality, etc.) present in the media content. For example, if the mediacontent includes an image, the educational content system can determinethe presentation attributes of the image (e.g., image height, imagewidth, image color, image position relative to other media content,etc.) as the default (or initial) formatting rules.

In some implementations, the educational content system can determinethe initial formatting rules as including formatting rules specified bya user from the provider device or the client device. For example, asdescribed herein above, the provider device or the client device canprovide media content to the educational content system, and can specifycertain formatting requirements for the content. The educational contentsystem can store the default formatting rules (as above), at the lowestpriority (or level), and can store the user-specified formatting rulesas part of the initial formatting rules at a higher level than thedefault formatting rules. In some implementations, the provider deviceor the client device can select a priority (or a level) for one or moreof the formatting rules of the presentation attributes of the mediacontent. In some implementations, the provider device or the clientdevice can provide additional formatting rules for the media contentthat apply to the media content when the media content is presented indifferent contexts (e.g., in different types of information resources,etc.). In such implementations, the educational content system can storethe additional formatting rules for the presentation attributes of themedia content in association with an identifier of specified context towhich the additional formatting rules pertain. The additional formattingrules can be stored as part of the initial formatting rules for themedia content at a higher priority (or level) than the otherpresentation attributes for the specified context.

Although the above description of determining initial formatting rulesfor the media content can apply to a single item of content (e.g., asingle image, text segment, audio file, video, etc.), it should beunderstood that the educational content system can determine initialformatting rules for each presentation attribute of each item of contentprovided as part of the media content. Each item of content (e.g., eachhaving a media modality, etc.) in the media content provided by theprovider device or the client device can be referred to as a portion ofthe media content 270. Thus, the educational content system candetermine initial formatting rules corresponding to each presentationattribute of each portion of the media content provided by the providerdevice or the client device. In some implementations, the educationalcontent system can determine the initial formatting rules based onpreliminary layout information provided by the provider device or theclient device, in connection with the media content. For example, theeducational content system can determine the initial formatting rulesfor each presentation attribute as corresponding to the preliminarylayout information indicated in the above. The preliminary layoutinformation can indicate, for example, the relative size of two imagesto one another, the relative position of two images to one another whenpresented as part of an information resource, among any other layoutinformation described herein.

The educational content system can identify a destination format for themedia content (STEP 406). The destination format can include at leastone formatting requirement. A formatting requirement can correspond to arequirement for different types of content (e.g., different contentmodalities, etc.). In some implementations, the educational contentsystem can identify the destination format by transmitting one or morequeries to the computing device that provided the media content (e.g.,the provider device, the client device, etc.). The queries can includeone or more potential destination formats, which can be presented in oneor more user interfaces on a display of the provider device. The userinterfaces can have actionable objects that allow a user to select oneor more of the destination formats. The destination formats cancorrespond to a type of information resource that the media content canbe formatted into using the formatting rules. The destination formatscan include, for example, word documents, presentation slides, flashcards, electronic textbook pages, webpages, native applicationresources, online quiz questions, online practice questions, or onlineexam questions, among others. Upon selecting one or more of thepotential destination formats, the provider device or the client devicecan transmit a message that indicates each of the selected potentialdestination formats to the educational content system. The educationalcontent system can receive the message and parse the selection of theone or more selected destination formats.

In some implementations, the educational content system can determine adestination format based on a device type of a client device thatrequests media content from the educational content system. For example,one or more of the client devices can transmit a request to theeducational content system that requests a specific item of the mediacontent, such as a practice question. The request can include the typeof device that is requesting the media content. The type of the devicecan include the display capabilities (e.g., display resolution, etc.) ofthe client device and the display context (e.g., web browser, nativeapplication, etc.) where the requested media content is to be displayed.

The educational content system can determine whether the content iscompatible with a format (DECISION 408). For example, the educationalcontent system can compare the initial formatting rules of the mediacontent to the formatting requirements of the destination format. If theinitial formatting rules (e.g., a default font type-face and size, etc.)are compatible with the destination format as-is, then modification ofthe formatting rules to satisfy the formatting requirements of thedestination format may not be necessary. For example, if the defaultsize of an image in the media content fits within the formatting regionsof an information resource having the destination format, then theeducational content system can determine that the media content iscompatible with the destination format, and can proceed to execute STEP412. In contrast, if the educational content system determines that anyportion (e.g., image, text, video, audio, etc.) does not satisfy theformatting requirements of the destination format, the educationalcontent system can proceed to execute STEP 410, to modify the formattingrules to be compatible with the destination format.

The educational content system can modify each item of media content(STEP 410). The educational content system can modify the initialformatting rules for the media content based on the formattingrequirement of the one or more destination formats identified by theeducational content system. To do so, the educational content system cangenerate modified formatting rules that override (e.g., have a greaterpriority level than, etc.) other formatting rules for the media content.As described herein above, each destination format (e.g., formats of thevarious types of information resources described herein, etc.), can havecertain formatting requirements. For example, a page of an electronictextbook can have predetermined page dimensions, and can have apredetermined region for rendering media content. To accommodate suchformatting requirements, the educational content system can generateformatting rules that supersede the initial user-specified formattingrules determined by the educational content system.

In some implementations, the educational content system can modify theinitial formatting rules for the media content based on presentationcapabilities of the device type on which the media content will bepresented. For example, the presentation capabilities can indicate amaximum horizontal resolution and a maximum vertical resolution ofcontent displayed on the device. To accommodate these capabilities, theeducational content system can modify the initial formatting rules bygenerating an additional formatting rule for the media content that hasa priority value that supersedes that of the initial formatting rules.The additional formatting rules can modify the presentation attributesof the media content (e.g., the width/height of images, the font size,character spacing of text, etc.) to fit within the constraints of thedevice that will be displaying the media content. The modifiedformatting rules can be stored in association with an identifier of thedevice.

In some implementations, the educational content system can modify theinitial formatting rules for the media content based on minimum andmaximum values of the presentation attributes (e.g., of a range ofpossible values of the presentation attributes, etc.) for the mediamodalities (e.g. each portion of media content, etc.) present in themedia content. The minimum and maximum values for a particular modalitycan be a predetermined range of practical values for the presentationattributes of the portions of media content. These values can be storedin association with an identifier of the particular modality. Forexample, a minimum font size can be a 6-point font, because font sizessmaller than 6-point font are practically unreadable. Likewise, amaximum font size can be 72-point font, because larger fonts wouldotherwise obscure other portions of the media content. It should beunderstood that different ranges for a presentation attribute of themedia content can be established for different presentation contexts(e.g., different types of information resources, etc.). Although theabove example describes the maximum and minimum values for font size, itshould be understood that minimum and maximum values can be determinedfor any type of presentation attribute of any media content type (e.g.,any media modality such as videos, images, audio, etc.) as describedherein.

The minimum and maximum values for a presentation attribute of the mediacontent presentation context (e.g., destination format, etc.) can beconsidered as part of the formatting requirements of that presentationformat. However, in some implementations, the range of possiblepresentation for a particular type of media content can be discrete, andthus have a limited set of values that can be chosen for a givendestination format. In such circumstances, the educational contentsystem can select one of the presentation attributes in the rangedefined by the minimum and the maximum values of the presentationattributes based on the formatting requirements of the destinationformat. For example, if the destination format is a web page that willbe displayed on a mobile device, the educational content system canmodify the initial formatting rules by adding an additional formattingrule with a higher priority for that destination format (e.g.,presentation context, etc.). The additional formatting rules can specifythat the presentation attribute should be modified to the selected valuewithin the range defined by the minimum and maximum values of thepresentation attribute when the particular media content 270 isdisplayed in the destination format. The educational content system canperform such operations for one or more of the media modalities (e.g.,content types, etc.) present in the media content.

In another example, the educational content system can modify theinitial formatting rules for images, such that the presentationattributes (e.g., image width, image height, etc.) of one or more imagesin the media content. For example, the educational content system canmodify the initial formatting rules for the media content by determiningan adjusted size for the one or more images in the media content. To doso, the educational content system can access the formattingrequirements for the destination format, and identify at least one of amaximum possible height for the image or a maximum possible width forthe image. For example, if the preliminary layout information specifiedwhen the media content was provided to the educational content systemindicates that an image can occupy the maximum width of the destinationformat (e.g., occupy the width of a page of a textbook, a powerpointslide, etc.), the educational content system can modify the formattingrules by adding an additional formatting rule (with a greater prioritythan the other formatting rules for that destination format) thatspecifies the width of the image to be equal to the maximum possiblewidth for that destination format. To properly communicate theinformation in the image, the educational content system can alsoperform similar operations (e.g., adding an additional formatting ruleas described herein, etc.) to also modify the height of the image tomaintain the aspect ratio of the image. The educational content systemcan determine the aspect ratio of the image by accessing the originaldimensions of the image, as indicated in the media content stored in thedatabase.

In some implementations, the educational content system can utilize aregression model to modify the initial formatting rules for the mediacontent. The regression model can be, for example, a linear regressionmodel, a logistic regression model, a ridge regression model, a lassoregression model, a polynomial regression model, or a Bayesianregression model, among others. The educational content system can take,as input to the regression model, the default presentation attributes ofthe media content (e.g., font size, image width, image height, etc.), aswell as any initial formatting rules (e.g., any specified by the user atupload time, etc.), and any formatting requirements or constraints ofthe destination format, such as the overall destination format width andheight.

In some implementations, the educational content system can generatecomposite formatting rules, which can include formatting rules for morethan one portion of media content. For example, if more than one item ofmedia content can be specified on a single information resource (e.g.,two practice questions on a single page of an electronic textbook,etc.), the educational content system can generate formatting rules formore than one item of the media content. To do so, the educationalcontent system can identify second media content having second initialformatting rules, for example, based on a request to generate aninformation resource that includes at least two items of media contentreceived from the provider device or the client device. Each item ofmedia content that is to be included in the information resource can beassociated with initial formatting rules for the presentation attributesof the media content. Using the initial formatting rules of each item ofmedia content, the educational content system can generate compositeformatting rules using a regression model similar to that describedherein above in connection with FIG. 3 . The regression model can take,as input, the default presentation parameters of each item of mediacontent, any initial formatting rules that modify those presentationparameters, and the formatting requirements of the destination resource.The regression model can provide as output the optimal height (or otherdimensions) of each item of the media content, such that each of theitems of media content can be presented on the destination informationresource concurrently without losing or obscuring any information in themedia content. Thus, the educational content system can

Using the optimal dimensions for each item of media content, theeducational content system can generate composite formatting rules forthe media content and the destination information resource. For example,the educational content system can identify, based on the output of theregression model, a first portion of the composite formatting rulescorresponding to a first item of media content (e.g., first optimalpresentation attributes such as size, etc.), and a second portion of thecomposite formatting rules corresponding to the second media content(e.g., second optimal presentation attributes such as size, etc.). Thecomposite formatting rules can include a combination of formatting rulesfor each item of media content when the media content is displayed withother items of media content specified in the composite formattingrules. In general, the composite formatting rules can specify the sizeand relative position of multiple items of media content when the mediacontent is presented in the destination information resource.

The educational content system can generate an information resource(STEP 412). The educational content system can generate an informationresource that includes media content specified by the provider device orthe client device. As described herein, the information resource can beany sort of resource that displays information, such as presentationslides, word-processing documents, flash cards, online quiz questions,online exam questions, online practice questions, electronic textbookpages, or printable textbook pages, among others. The informationresources can be generate by parsing the formatting rules, which can bestored as a generic markup language that specifies different parametersof the media content, such as display position, display size, and otherrendering information, and translate the generic markup language into aninformation that is suitable for an information resource. For example,Word processing documents can utilize XML markup to specify how contentis displayed in word-processing documents. The educational contentsystem can identify, or each presentation attribute of a given portionof the media content, each formatting rule having the highest priority,and translate that formatting rule into suitable XML or other languagesuitable for the format of the destination information resource. Theeducational content system can perform such functionality for each itemof the media content until the information resource has been populatedas desired.

In some implementations, the educational content system can generate theinformation resource to include all of the media content specified incomposite formatting rules, which as described herein above, specifyformatting rules for multiple items of media content that appear on asingle information resource. To do so, the educational content systemcan perform similar processing steps, but apply the composite formattingrules to each item of the media content that is to appear on thedestination information resource. In general, certain destinationinformation resources may include multiple display portions (e.g.,multiple pages in a word document, etc.). In such circumstances, theeducational content system can generate the information resource toinclude as many pages or portions necessary to display each item of themedia content efficiently according to the composite formatting rules.The educational content system can repeat each of the processesidentified above for each of the information resources requested by theprovider device or the client device, as described herein above. Upongenerating the information resources, the educational content system canstore each of the information resources in association with the mediacontent forming a part of the information resources in the database.

Implementations of the subject matter and the operations described inthis specification can be implemented in digital electronic circuitry,or in computer software embodied on a tangible medium, firmware, orhardware, including the structures disclosed in this specification andtheir structural equivalents, or in combinations of one or more of them.Implementations of the subject matter described in this specificationcan be implemented as one or more computer programs, e.g., one or morecomponents of computer program instructions, encoded on computer storagemedium for execution by, or to control the operation of, data processingapparatus. The program instructions can be encoded on anartificially-generated propagated signal, e.g., a machine-generatedelectrical, optical, or electromagnetic signal that is generated toencode information for transmission to suitable receiver apparatus forexecution by a data processing apparatus. A computer storage medium canbe, or be included in, a computer-readable storage device, acomputer-readable storage substrate, a random or serial access memoryarray or device, or a combination of one or more of them. Moreover,while a computer storage medium is not a propagated signal, a computerstorage medium can include a source or destination of computer programinstructions encoded in an artificially-generated propagated signal. Thecomputer storage medium can also be, or be included in, one or moreseparate physical components or media (e.g., multiple CDs, disks, orother storage devices).

The operations described in this specification can be implemented asoperations performed by a data processing apparatus on data stored onone or more computer-readable storage devices or received from othersources.

The terms “data processing apparatus”, “data processing system”, “clientdevice”, “computing platform”, “computing device”, or “device”encompasses all kinds of apparatus, devices, and machines for processingdata, including by way of example a programmable processor, a computer,a system on a chip, or multiple ones, or combinations, of the foregoing.The apparatus can include special purpose logic circuitry, e.g., an FPGA(field programmable gate array) or an ASIC (application-specificintegrated circuit). The apparatus can also include, in addition tohardware, code that creates an execution environment for the computerprogram in question, e.g., code that constitutes processor firmware, aprotocol stack, a database management system, an operating system, across-platform runtime environment, a virtual machine, or a combinationof one or more of them. The apparatus and execution environment canrealize various different computing model infrastructures, such as webservices, distributed computing and grid computing infrastructures.

A computer program (also known as a program, software, softwareapplication, script, or code) can be written in any form of programminglanguage, including compiled or interpreted languages, declarative orprocedural languages, and it can be deployed in any form, including as astand-alone program or as a module, component, subroutine, object, orother unit suitable for use in a computing environment. A computerprogram may, but need not, correspond to a file in a file system. Aprogram can be stored in a portion of a file that holds other programsor data (e.g., one or more scripts stored in a markup languagedocument), in a single file dedicated to the program in question, or inmultiple coordinated files (e.g., files that store one or more modules,sub-programs, or portions of code). A computer program can be deployedto be executed on one computer or on multiple computers that are locatedat one site or distributed across multiple sites and interconnected by acommunication network.

The processes and logic flows described in this specification can beperformed by one or more programmable processors executing one or morecomputer programs to perform actions by operating on input data andgenerating output. The processes and logic flows can also be performedby, and apparatuses can also be implemented as, special purpose logiccircuitry, e.g., an FPGA (field programmable gate array) or an ASIC(application-specific integrated circuit).

Processors suitable for the execution of a computer program include, byway of example, both general and special purpose microprocessors, andany one or more processors of any kind of digital computer. Generally, aprocessor will receive instructions and data from a read-only memory ora random access memory or both. The elements of a computer include aprocessor for performing actions in accordance with instructions and oneor more memory devices for storing instructions and data. Generally, acomputer will also include, or be operatively coupled to receive datafrom or transfer data to, or both, one or more mass storage devices forstoring data, e.g., magnetic, magneto-optical disks, or optical disks.However, a computer need not have such devices. Moreover, a computer canbe embedded in another device, e.g., a mobile telephone, a personaldigital assistant (PDA), a mobile audio or video player, a game console,a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver, or a portable storage device(e.g., a universal serial bus (USB) flash drive), for example. Devicessuitable for storing computer program instructions and data include allforms of non-volatile memory, media and memory devices, including by wayof example semiconductor memory devices, e.g., EPROM, EEPROM, and flashmemory devices; magnetic disks, e.g., internal hard disks or removabledisks; magneto-optical disks; and CD-ROM and DVD-ROM disks. Theprocessor and the memory can be supplemented by, or incorporated in,special purpose logic circuitry.

To provide for interaction with a user, implementations of the subjectmatter described in this specification can be implemented on a computerhaving a display device, e.g., a CRT (cathode ray tube), plasma, or LCD(liquid crystal display) monitor, for displaying information to the userand a keyboard and a pointing device, e.g., a mouse or a trackball, bywhich the user can provide input to the computer. Other kinds of devicescan be used to provide for interaction with a user as well; for example,feedback provided to the user can include any form of sensory feedback,e.g., visual feedback, auditory feedback, or tactile feedback; and inputfrom the user can be received in any form, including acoustic, speech,or tactile input. In addition, a computer can interact with a user bysending documents to and receiving documents from a device that is usedby the user; for example, by sending web pages to a web browser on auser's client device in response to requests received from the webbrowser.

Implementations of the subject matter described in this specificationcan be implemented in a computing system that includes a back-endcomponent, e.g., as a data server, or that includes a middlewarecomponent, e.g., an application server, or that includes a front-endcomponent, e.g., a client computer having a graphical user interface ora Web browser through which a user can interact with an implementationof the subject matter described in this specification, or anycombination of one or more such back-end, middleware, or front-endcomponents. The components of the system can be interconnected by anyform or medium of digital data communication, e.g., a communicationnetwork. Examples of communication networks include a local area network(“LAN”) and a wide area network (“WAN”), an inter-network (e.g., theInternet), and peer-to-peer networks (e.g., ad hoc peer-to-peernetworks).

The computing system such as the educational content system 205 caninclude clients and servers. For example, the educational content system205 can include one or more servers in one or more data centers orserver farms. A client and server are generally remote from each otherand typically interact through a communication network. The relationshipof client and server arises by virtue of computer programs running onthe respective computers and having a client-server relationship to eachother. In some implementations, a server transmits data (e.g., an HTMLpage) to a client device (e.g., for purposes of displaying data to andreceiving input from a user interacting with the client device). Datagenerated at the client device (e.g., a result of an interaction,computation, or any other event or computation) can be received from theclient device at the server, and vice-versa.

While this specification contains many specific implementation details,these should not be construed as limitations on the scope of anyinventions or of what may be claimed, but rather as descriptions offeatures specific to particular implementations of the systems andmethods described herein. Certain features that are described in thisspecification in the context of separate implementations can also beimplemented in combination in a single implementation. Conversely,various features that are described in the context of a singleimplementation can also be implemented in multiple implementationsseparately or in any suitable subcombination. Moreover, althoughfeatures may be described above as acting in certain combinations andeven initially claimed as such, one or more features from a claimedcombination can in some cases be excised from the combination, and theclaimed combination may be directed to a subcombination or variation ofa subcombination.

Similarly, while operations are depicted in the drawings in a particularorder, this should not be understood as requiring that such operationsbe performed in the particular order shown or in sequential order, orthat all illustrated operations be performed, to achieve desirableresults. In some cases, the actions recited in the claims can beperformed in a different order and still achieve desirable results. Inaddition, the processes depicted in the accompanying figures do notnecessarily require the particular order shown, or sequential order, toachieve desirable results.

In certain circumstances, multitasking and parallel processing may beadvantageous. Moreover, the separation of various system components inthe implementations described above should not be understood asrequiring such separation in all implementations, and it should beunderstood that the described program components and systems cangenerally be integrated together in a single software product orpackaged into multiple software products. For example, the educationalcontent system 205 could be a single module, a logic device having oneor more processing modules, one or more servers, or part of a searchengine.

Having now described some illustrative implementations andimplementations, it is apparent that the foregoing is illustrative andnot limiting, having been presented by way of example. In particular,although many of the examples presented herein involve specificcombinations of method acts or system elements, those acts and thoseelements may be combined in other ways to accomplish the sameobjectives. Acts, elements and features discussed only in connectionwith one implementation are not intended to be excluded from a similarrole in other implementations or implementations.

The phraseology and terminology used herein is for the purpose ofdescription and should not be regarded as limiting. The use of“including” “comprising” “having” “containing” “involving”“characterized by” “characterized in that” and variations thereofherein, is meant to encompass the items listed thereafter, equivalentsthereof, and additional items, as well as alternate implementationsconsisting of the items listed thereafter exclusively. In oneimplementation, the systems and methods described herein consist of one,each combination of more than one, or all of the described elements,acts, or components.

Any references to implementations or elements or acts of the systems andmethods herein referred to in the singular may also embraceimplementations including a plurality of these elements, and anyreferences in plural to any implementation or element or act herein mayalso embrace implementations including only a single element. Referencesin the singular or plural form are not intended to limit the presentlydisclosed systems or methods, their components, acts, or elements tosingle or plural configurations. References to any act or element beingbased on any information, act or element may include implementationswhere the act or element is based at least in part on any information,act, or element.

Any implementation disclosed herein may be combined with any otherimplementation, and references to “an implementation,” “someimplementations,” “an alternate implementation,” “variousimplementation,” “one implementation” or the like are not necessarilymutually exclusive and are intended to indicate that a particularfeature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with theimplementation may be included in at least one implementation. Suchterms as used herein are not necessarily all referring to the sameimplementation. Any implementation may be combined with any otherimplementation, inclusively or exclusively, in any manner consistentwith the aspects and implementations disclosed herein.

References to “or” may be construed as inclusive so that any termsdescribed using “or” may indicate any of a single, more than one, andall of the described terms.

Where technical features in the drawings, detailed description or anyclaim are followed by reference signs, the reference signs have beenincluded for the sole purpose of increasing the intelligibility of thedrawings, detailed description, and claims. Accordingly, neither thereference signs nor their absence have any limiting effect on the scopeof any claim elements.

The systems and methods described herein may be embodied in otherspecific forms without departing from the characteristics thereof.Although the examples provided may be useful for generating andformatting multiple teaching media, the systems and methods describedherein may be applied to other environments. The foregoingimplementations are illustrative rather than limiting of the describedsystems and methods. The scope of the systems and methods describedherein may thus be indicated by the appended claims, rather than theforegoing description, and changes that come within the meaning andrange of equivalency of the claims are embraced therein.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of generating and formatting multipleteaching media, comprising: receiving, by one or more processors coupledto memory, from a client computing device, an item of media content;identifying, by the one or more processors, a destination format for theitem of media content, the destination format comprising a formattingrequirement; determining, by the one or more processors, formattingrules for the item of media content based on the formatting requirementof the destination format; and generating, by the one or moreprocessors, an information resource having the destination format basedon the determined formatting rules.
 2. The method of claim 1, whereinidentifying the destination format for the item of media contentcomprises: transmitting, by the one or more processors, a set ofpotential destination formats to the client computing device; andreceiving, by the one or more processors from the client computingdevice, a selection of the destination format from the set of potentialdestination formats.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein determining theformatting rules for the item of media content further comprises:identifying, by the one or more processors, a respective portion of theitem of media content corresponding to each of one or more mediamodalities; and determining, by the one or more processors, theformatting rules for the respective portion corresponding to each of theone or more media modalities.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein the itemof media content comprises one or more images, and further comprisingdetermining, by the one or more processors, an adjusted size for the oneor more images based on the formatting requirement and an original sizeof the one or more images.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein identifyingthe destination format further comprises: determining, by the one ormore processors, a device type on which the destination format will bepresented; and identifying, by the one or more processors, theformatting rules for the item of media content based on presentationcapabilities of the device type on which the destination format will bepresented.
 6. The method of claim 1, wherein the item of media contentspecifies preliminary layout information of a plurality of portions ofthe media content.
 7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:identifying, by the one or more processors, a second item of mediacontent associated with second formatting rules and a presentationattribute, the second media content specified for inclusion in theinformation resource; generating, by the one or more processors,composite formatting rules for the information resource based on theitem of media content and the presentation attribute and one or moreattributes of the information resource; and generating, by the one ormore processors, the information resource to include the item of mediacontent and the second item of media content based on the compositeformatting rules.
 8. The method of claim 7, wherein generating thecomposite formatting rules further comprises: providing, by the one ormore processors, as input to a regression model, a presentationattribute of each of one or more media modalities, the one or moreattributes of the information resource, and the second presentationattribute of the second item of media content; and identifying, by theone or more processors, as an output of the regression model, a firstportion of the composite formatting rules corresponding to the item ofmedia content, and a second portion of the composite formatting rulescorresponding to the second item of media content.
 9. The method ofclaim 1, further comprising modifying a size of the item of mediacontent based on the destination format and other content in theinformation resource.
 10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:determining, by the one or more processors, maximum and minimum valuesfor a presentation attribute of the item of media content; andselecting, by the one or more processors, an updated value of thepresentation attribute based on the formatting requirement.
 11. A systemfor generating and formatting multiple teaching media, comprising: oneor more processors coupled to memory, the one or more processorsconfigured to: receive, from a client computing device, an item of mediacontent; identify a destination format for the item of media content,the destination format comprising a formatting requirement; determineformatting rules for the item of media content based on the formattingrequirement of the destination format; and generate an informationresource having the destination format based on the determinedformatting rules.
 12. The system of claim 11, wherein the one or moreprocessors are further configured to identify the destination format forthe item of media content by: transmitting a set of potentialdestination formats to the client computing device; and receiving, fromthe client computing device, a selection of the destination format fromthe set of potential destination formats.
 13. The system of claim 11,wherein the one or more processors are further configured to determinethe formatting rules for the item of media content by: identifying arespective portion of the item of media content corresponding to each ofone or more media modalities; and determining the formatting rules forthe respective portion corresponding to each of the one or more mediamodalities.
 14. The system of claim 11, wherein the item of mediacontent comprises one or more images, and wherein the one or moreprocessors are further configured to determine an adjusted size for theone or more images based on the formatting requirement and an originalsize of the one or more images.
 15. The system of claim 11, wherein theone or more processors are further configured to identify thedestination format by: determining a device type on which thedestination format will be presented; and identifying the formattingrules for the item of media content based on presentation capabilitiesof the device type on which the destination format will be presented.16. The system of claim 11, wherein the item of media content specifiespreliminary layout information of a plurality of portions of the mediacontent.
 17. The system of claim 11, wherein the one or more processorsare further configured to: identify a second item of media contentassociated with second formatting rules and a presentation attribute,the second item of media content specified for inclusion in theinformation resource; generate composite formatting rules for theinformation resource based on the item of media content and thepresentation attribute and one or more attributes of the informationresource; and generate the information resource to include the item ofmedia content and the second item of media content based on thecomposite formatting rules.
 18. The system of claim 17, wherein the oneor more processors are further configured to generate the compositeformatting rules by: providing, as input to a regression model, apresentation attribute of each of one or more media modalities, the oneor more attributes of the information resource, and the secondpresentation attribute of the second media content; and identifying, asan output of the regression model, a first portion of the compositeformatting rules corresponding to the item of media content, and asecond portion of the composite formatting rules corresponding to thesecond item of media content.
 19. The system of claim 11, wherein theone or more processors are further configured to modify a size of theitem of media content based on the destination format and other contentin the information resource.
 20. The system of claim 11, wherein the oneor more processors are further configured to: determine maximum andminimum values for a presentation attribute of the item of mediacontent; and select an updated value of the presentation attribute basedon the formatting requirement.